CHAKLES DEVENS 



ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES 



CHARLES DEVENS 

Orations and Addresses 



ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS 



CIVIL AND MILITARY 



EDITED BY HIS NEPHEW 



ARTHUR LITHGOW DEVENS 



WITH A MEMOIR BY 

JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, THE MILITARY 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS, ETC. 



V 



BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1801 



If? 



Copyright, 1891, 
By Little, Biiowx, akd Company. 



t^nibrrsttg 13rrss: 
John Wilson and Sox, CAMiuunGE. 



COXTEITS. 



Page 
Memoir 1 

Oration ox General Meade. Delivered before the 
Society of the Army of the Potomac, at New 
Haven, May 14, 1873 27 

Address at the Dedication of the Soldiers' Monu- 
ment at Worcester, July 15, 1874 01 

Oration at the Centennial Annwf.rsary of the 

Battle of Bunker Hill. June 17, 1875 77 

Oration at the Dedication of the Soldiers' Monu- 
ment at Boston, September 17, 1877 131 

Address at the Commemoration of the Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Parish 
Church of Charlestown, November 12, 1882 . . 14 7 

Commemorative Address on General Grant. Deliv- 
ered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, July 2(i, 1885 . . 155 

Commemorative Address on General Grant. Deliv- 
ered at Worcester, August 8, 1885 . . . . • . . 1(17 

Address to the Fifteenth Regiment Association, 
on their Visit to the Battle-field of Gettys- 
burg. June, 1886 170 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page 

Addkess as President of the Alumni at the Dinner 
in Memorial Hall ox the Two Hundred and Fif- 
tieth Anniversary of the Founding of Harvard 
College, November 8, 1886 199 

Address before the Loyal Legion in Memory of 

General Sheridan, November 7, 1888 211 

Extracts from Three Addresses as President of 
the Bunker Hill Monument Association in 1887, 
1888, 1889 225 

Oration on the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the 
Loyal Legion. Delivered at Philadelphia, April 
15, 1890 273 



MEMOIR. 



To no man of this generation more fully than to 
Charles Devens can be paid the honor due. to faith- 
ful and honorable public service. Devotion to the 
State, obedience to the call of his country, — these 
were his conspicuous traits. His service was un- 
grudging. When the war came, he freely stepped 
forward. He was at the front in some of the 
bloodiest and most obstinate of the Virginia bat- 
tles. His public life was long, distinguished, and 
absolutely unblemished. No cloud ever rested for 
a moment upon his fair fame. His honors were 
won by no devious methods, by no unworthy con- 
cessions. His ambition was lofty, and it was 
disinterested. It was, moreover, successful. The 
confidence of the public rewarded his unmistak- 
able devotion to the public good. The whole 
community rejoiced to do him honor. Many men 
in our day have won public attention and some- 
times public gratitude by advocating great changes, 
by heading great reforms, or by being inseparably 



2 MEMOIR. 

connected with the controversies of the day, moral, 
political, or religious ; but Charles Devens was 
not one of these. He was simply a good citizen, 
a brave soldier, an upright magistrate, a true 
patriot. 

He was born at No. 30 Union Street, Charles- 
town, now a part of Boston, on April 4, 1820. He 
was a son of Charles and Mary (Lithgow) Devens. 
His mother was the daughter of Colonel Arthur 
Lithgow of Augusta, Maine. His great-grand- 
father, Richard Devens, was a member of the 
Committee of Safety and Commissary-General of 
Massachusetts during the Revolution. 

He was graduated at Harvard College in 1838 
at the early age of eighteen, James Russell Lowell 
and William W. Story being among his classmates. 
He studied law at the Harvard Law School, and 
received the degree of LL.B. in 1840, in company 
with the late Chief-Justice Morton. He pursued 
his studies in the office of William J. Hubbard 
and Francis 0. Watts in Boston, and in 1841 was 
admitted to the bar. 

For some years he practised in Franklin County, 
residing first at Northfield and afterwards at Green- 
field. In the years 1848 and 1849 he represented 
his district in the State Senate. When the Whigs 
came into power by the election of General Taylor, 
Mr. Devens was made United States Marshal for 



MEMOIR. 3 

the District of Massachusetts, — an office which he 
held for the four years between 1849 and 1853. 

It was during this time that the Fugitive Slave 
Bill was passed, as part of the " Compromise 
Measures of 1850; " and it became on one occasion 
Mr. Devens's painful duty to make the necessary 
arrangements for the return of a fugitive. One 
Sims, a slave belonging in Georgia, escaped to Bos- 
ton in April, 1851. The United States Commis- 
sioner under the recent Act heard the case, decided 
it in favor of the claim of the owner, and directed 
the United States Marshal to escort the prisoner to 
the vessel on which he was to be transported back 
to Georgia. The legal duty thus imposed upon the 
Marshal was without exception the most repulsive 
which could by any possibility fall to his lot. A 
poor slave, who had presumably made his escape 
either because his fate was exceptionally hard or 
because his love of liberty was exceptionally strong, 
was to be refused an asylum in the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts, and sent back to slavery. It was 
against all the natural sympathies of the human 
heart, contrary to the humane and tolerant spirit 
of this community, opposed indeed to the natural 
sense of justice, certainly as we in Massachusetts 
had for nearly a century recognized it, that this 
poor black should be sent back to his former help- 
less and hopeless condition of servitude. No one 



4 MEMOIR. 

could wish to have any part in such an action. Its 
morality depended on the relative weight which a 
right-minded, public-spirited, and humane citizen 
would assign to the considerations which have just 
been stated as contrasted with the obligations 
resting upon all good citizens, and especially upon 
those who have assumed the duties of public office, 
to execute the laws of the land. Fortunately for 
this community, and for the cause of good govern- 
ment, Marshal Devens decided in favor of the par- 
amount and superior authority of the obligations 
which rested upon him as an officer of the law ; 
and in face of the unpopularity and miscon- 
struction of motives and personal abuse in which 
his action was sure to involve him, he acted with 
vigor and decision. That he should have so fully 
and satisfactorily met such a perplexing and trying 
emergency at the early age of thirty-one, argued 
well for his future as a public servant. 

While, however, Mr. Devens was determined to 
do his duty as an officer of the law, he spared no 
pains to ransom its unfortunate victim. He set on 
foot negotiations for the purchase of Sims, which, 
though not successful, failed through no fault of 
his. No one could feel more keenly than he the 
pain of participating, even in an official capacity, 
in the wretched task of surrendering a fugitive 
slave. 



MEMOIR. 5 

When the Whig administration of Mr. Fillmore 
was succeeded by the Democratic administration 
of Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Devens returned to the 
practice of the law, — this time in Worcester, 
and in partnership with Mr. George F. Hoar, now 
one of the senators from Massachusetts. 

In April, 1861, upon the first call of President 
Lincoln for troops, Mr. Devens accepted the com- 
mand, as major, of the Third Battalion of Rifles 

of the Massachusetts militia. While in command 

« 

of this battalion at Fort McHenry near Baltimore, 
he was offered by Governor Andrew, and accepted, 
the commission of colonel of the Fifteenth Regi- 
ment of Massachusetts Volunteers, — a Worcester 
County regiment, and one of the best sent out 
by the State. It was immediately incorporated 
into the Army of the Potomac. In the unfor- 
tunate affair of Ball's Bluff, on October 21, 1861, 
this regiment, under command of Colonel Devens, 
crossed the river and took its part with a portion 
of the Twentieth Massachusetts and other troops 
in one of the most obstinate and bloody encounters 
of the war. Here Devens distinguished himself for 
gallantry and coolness. He was slightly wounded, 
and finally had to swim the river to Harrison's 
Island. 

He was soon afterward made a brigadier-gen- 
eral of volunteers, and assigned to the command 



6 MEMOIR. 

of an excellent brigade, consisting of the Seventh 
and Tenth Massachusetts, the Second Rhode Is- 
land, and the Thirty-Sixth New York, to which 
in September, 1862, the Thirty-Seventh Massa- 
chusetts was added. This force formed a part of 
Couch's division of the Fourth Corps, which was 
then under the command of General Keyes. This 
corps and the Third, under General Heintzelman, 
were thrown across the Chickahominy in the latter 
part of May, 1862, thus constituting the advance 
of the army. On these two corps the Confederate 
general, Joseph E. Johnston, concentrated his 
forces, hoping to overwhelm them before the 
remainder of the army could be brought over 
the treacherous bridges of the Chickahominy to 
their assistance. On the 31st of May the blow 
fell ; and in spite of an obstinate and courageous 
defence, our troops were slowly forced back until 
.the enemy's strength became exhausted, and our 
reinforcements under the gallant Sumner and 
Sedgwick appeared on the field. In this severe 
action General Devens won new laurels. " With 
only two regiments," says General Couch in his 
official report, "he held his own firmly. . . . 
Severely wounded, he remained bravely on the 
field until the last shot was fired." 

General Devens's wound prevented his taking 
part in the Seven Days' battles near Richmond, 



MEMOIR. 7 

at the close of which our army took up early in 
July a strong position at Harrison's Landing on 
the James. In September, the army was removed 
to the neighborhood of Washington, and under 
General McClellan fought the bloody battle of 
Antietam, which brought Lee's invasion of Mary- 
land to a sudden and unsuccessful termination. 
In these operations Couch's division was not ac- 
tively engaged ; it reached the field of Antietam 
late in the forenoon of the 18th, the day after 
the battle. 

In the autumn of 1862, this division, now no 
longer under Couch, who had been promoted to 
the command of the Second Corps, was transferred 
to the Sixth Corps, then under Franklin ; and 
when that officer was assigned to the command of 
the Left Grand Division of the Army of the 
Potomac, a change made by Burnside, who in 
November replaced McClellan in command of the 
army, the Sixth Corps was placed under General 
William F. Smith, and the division was assigned 
to General John Newton. 

In the movement upon Fredericksburg, on De- 
cember 11, 1862, the Sixth Corps crossed the Rap- 
pahannock below the town. Devens's brigade led 
the advance ; and when, owing to the lateness of 
the hour, it was thought best to retire all the 
troops but one brigade, it was that of General 



8 MEMOIR. 

Devens which General Newton selected to hold 
the bridges on the enemy's side of the river dur- 
ing the night. So when on the 15th, after the 
loss of the main battle, the Sixth Corps was with- 
drawn to the north bank of the river, it was again 
Devens who requested and was given the honor 
of covering with his brigade the recrossing of the 
troops. 

In these operations Devens won the high com- 
mendation of his superiors. " General Devens and 
Colonel Torbert," says General Smith in his report, 
" deserve especial mention for the promptitude and 
precision with which they formed their lines to 
cover the crossing." " My obligations," says Gen- 
eral Newton, " are due . . . especially to Brigadier- 
General Charles Devens, who commanded the ad- 
vance and rear guard in the crossing and recrossing 
of the river." 

But war has its cruel surprises for the bravest 
and steadiest of soldiers. Promoted to the com- 
mand of a division in the Eleventh Corps under 
General Howard, it was General Devens's lot to 
hold the extreme right of our line at Chancellors- 
ville. The Army of the Potomac, under General 
Hooker, had crossed the Rappahannock above Fred- 
ericksburg in the last days of April, 1863, had 
advanced some miles towards that city on the 1st 
of May, had then unwisely and unaccountably 



MEMOIR. 9 

been ordered to fall back into the dense woods 
from which it had just emerged, and had taken 
up a position facing east and south, with its head- 
quarters at the Chancellor house. This position 
was at once intrenched and rendered formidable 
on its southern face. 

General Lee, whose army certainly was not 
more than half as strong as that of his opponent, 
could hardly venture on a direct attack ; yet he 
felt that the situation was one of extreme gravity. 
There was no telling how large a force the Fed- 
erals could concentrate, nor when it might suit 
them to take the offensive in good earnest. It was 
of extreme importance to drive them at once to 
recross the river. Hence he listened willingly to 
the daring and brilliant proposal of Stonewall 
Jackson, his favorite lieutenant, that he should 
march around the front of our army and fall upon 
it from the westward. They had correctly sur- 
mised that no attack from this quarter would 
be expected by our generals. The march of 
Jackson's column was indeed discovered; but 
although at half-past nine in the morning 
Hooker ordered Howard to strengthen his right 
flank so as to be prepared to resist an attack 
from that direction, should any be made, there 
can be no doubt whatever that the movement 
was thought by Hooker, and by Howard also, 



10 MEMOIR. 

to be a movement in retreat. Troops were sent 
out from the main line to harass and annoy the 
flying foe. One brigade — that of Barlow — 
was even taken by Hooker from Howard's com- 
mand to support this attack. But Jackson was 
not to be diverted from his purpose. In the 
latter part of the afternoon of Saturday, May 
2, he attained a position west of the Eleventh 
Corps line, and, facing to the east, advanced in 
line of battle on its exposed flank. Devens had 
indeed placed a couple of regiments and a sec- 
tion of artillery to repel an assault from this 
quarter, should any be made. Much more than 
this he no doubt would have done, had he been 
in command of the corps. It seems certain * 
that he early in the day suspected the real 
character of the enemy's movement; but the in- 
formation which raised these suspicions in his 
mind, although transmitted promptly to corps 
headquarters, failed to elicit any order for him 
to change his dispositions. 

Had he possessed greater military sagacity or 
wider military experience, and so been able to 
divine the object of the enemy, or had the in- 
formation which he received made a greater im- 
pression on his mind, — in fine, we may fairly 



1 See his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the 
War (Report 18G5, vol. i. p. 179). 






MEMOIR. 11 

say, had he dared to take the responsibility of 
changing the dispositions of his division, — he 
might at least have rendered the impending dis- 
aster less overwhelming. But General Devens 
was not a military man by education, nor was 
he a military genius ; he had had very little ex- 
perience in the field ; he was commanding a divi- 
sion for the first time ; he was directly under the 
eve of his corps commander, — a regular officer, to 
whom he had transmitted all the information he 
had received, and on whom it evidently made no 
impression whatever. Lastly, the withdrawal of 
Barlow's brigade by Hooker's express order dur- 
ing; the afternoon must have convinced Devens 
that the general commanding the army looked 
at the whole matter as not deserving serious 
attention. 

The greater part of his division was facing 
south. It constituted the prolongation of the 
front of the army towards the west. Without 
orders he did not feel justified in stripping a 
portion of what was considered by his superiors 
as the main line of battle. He did, as we have 
seen, make some dispositions for defending his 
right flank ; but all the dispositions that he 
could have made on his ow r n responsibility 
would have been wholly inadequate to the needs 
of the occasion. At six o'clock in the afternoon 



12 MEMOIR. 

the storm broke, and in a few minutes compara- 
tively Devens's whole division was routed. He 
himself, wounded severely in the foot, unable to 
remount his horse, remained with his unfor- 
tunate command to the last, gallantly striving 
to rally the troops, and to interpose to the vic- 
torious advance of the Confederates an obstinate 
even if an ineffectual resistance. His efforts, as 
might have been expected, were unavailing. The 
rout of the Eleventh Corps, badly posted and out- 
numbered as it was, was complete ; but Devens 
did all that a brave man and a gallant officer 
could do to retrieve the fortunes of the fight. 

His wound, which was a serious one, was not 
cured when his division was again flanked and 
routed in the bloody battle of Gettysburg. In fact, 
he never rejoined it after Chancellorsville ; and the 
next time we see him in the field it is at the head 
of the Third Division of the Eighteenth Corps, 
then under Devens's former commander, General 
William F. Smith. That officer, who, with General 
Gillmore, had been serving under General Butler 
on the James River in the latter's ill-planned and 
unsuccessful movements directed upon Richmond 
from Bermuda Hundred, was in the latter part of 
May, 1864, ordered to join the Army of the Poto- 
mac with a force of about sixteen thousand men. 
The Army of the Potomac, after a series of bloody 



MEMOIR. 13 

and indecisive battles at the Wilderness, Spottsyl- 
vania, and the North Anna, was then about to cross 
the Pamunkey. Smith, when he arrived, was or- 
dered to Cold Harbor, where his command at first 
took up a position between the Fifth and Sixth 
corps. On the afternoon of the 1st of June an as- 
sault on the enemy's lines was made. " The Third 
Division, under the command of Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Charles Devens, consisting of the brigades of 
Colonel Drake and Colonel Barton," says General 
Smith in his despatch of the 2d of June, u charged 
across an open field, 1,250 yards in width, swept 
by a cross-fire of the enemy's artillery, carried the 
edge of the woods, and drove the enemy from 
their intrenchments, which were protected by 
slashings and entanglements, taking some 250 
prisoners." In the general assault along the whole 
line, known as the battle of Cold Harbor, which 
was made on the morning of the 3d of June, 
" General Devens's command," says General Smith 
in his formal report, " held my right flank, and 
had been so much cut up in officers and men during 
the two days previous that I did not deem it in 
condition to do more than act on the defensive." 
In his article in the work entitled " Battles and 
Leaders of the Civil War," published by the Cen- 
tury Company, General Smith explains (p. 225) 
that " a gap of nearly two miles between the right 



14 MEMOIR. 

of the Eighteenth Corps and the left of the Fifth 
Corps under Warren made it necessary to throw 
back the right flank of the [Eighteenth] Corps to 
hold the open plain and roads, and to prevent that 
flank from being turned. This necessarily put the 
division on the right quite out of the battle, ex- 
cept in the use of its artillery at rather long 
range. . . . The plan adopted gave to Devens, 
with his division, the duty of keeping the right 
flank secure." This task General Devens faith- 
fully performed, although suffering so severely 
from rheumatism that he was obliged to ask for 
leave of absence. On June 4, " General Dev- 
ens," says Smith in his report, " who had done 
duty during the 3d, and [had been] carried about 
on a stretcher, was relieved, on account of his 
health, by General Ames." 

On recovering from this illness, General Devens 
returned with alacrity to duty, this time as com- 
manding the Third Division of the Twenty-fourth 
Corps under General Gibbon, which constituted a 
part of the Army of the James, under General 
Orel. On the 27th of March, 1865, the final cam- 
paign began. The greater part of the Twenty- 
fourth Corps, together with other troops from the 
Army of the James, took the field, to act in con- 
junction with the Army of the Potomac. Devens's 
division remained in the works; and by a great 



MEMOIR. 15 

piece of good fortune it fell to him to lead the 
first Federal troops into the capital of the Southern 
Confederacy. Early in the morning of the 3d 
of April, the Federal forces under General Weitzel, 
the commander of the Twenty-fifth Corps, entered 
the city ; and the division of Devens led in this 
triumphant march. 

We have been somewhat particular in giving the 
details of General Devens' s military services, be- 
cause they are presumably less well remembered 
by the public of the present da} 7 than his long and 
honorable career on the bench. But it is well that 
it should be known that he was no holiday soldier. 
He took his full share of fatigue, of responsibility, 
of danger. His merits were, as we have seen, re- 
cognized by all his superior officers ; and we may 
add that it was at the request of General Grant 
that he received his brevet of major-general of 
volunteers for gallant and meritorious conduct. 

He continued in the service for about a year 
after the cessation of hostilities, being for the 
greater part of that time in command of the 
Federal troops in South Carolina. In 18GG he 
was mustered out of service. 

He at once returned to Boston to resume the 
practice of the law ; but in 18G7 Governor Bul- 
lock appointed him to the bench of the Superior 
Court. Here he served about six years, when he 



16 MEMOIR. 

was promoted by Governor Washburn to a seat 
upon the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court. 
For about four years he filled this position to the 
great satisfaction of the community. 

In March, 1877, President Hayes offered him a 
place in his cabinet, — that of Attorney-General 
of the United States. It is an open secret that 
Judge Devens hesitated seriously before accepting 
this offer. He was nearly fifty-seven years of age ; 
he occupied a seat on the highest judicial bench 
in his own State ; he would have no right to claim 
or expect a restoration to this position on his re- 
turn from Washington ; and he would then be 
almost too old to resume practice at the bar. Nor 
would his private means, without a professional 
income, furnish him a sufficient support. More- 
over, he had been away from home for five years, 
and he much preferred living in Massachusetts to 
a residence far away from his friends and his own 
people. But the request of the President seemed 
like a call of duty, and he went. The tasks of 
his office, though new to him, were of course in 
the general line of his professional experience, and 
he discharged them to the evident satisfaction of 
the government. His life in Washington naturally 
brought him in contact with many of the distin- 
guished men of the country, the men who had won 
our victories in the late war, and who had, in 



MEMOIR. 17 

or out of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet, shown states- 
manship and ability. For society of this kind, 
and in fact for general society of every kind, 
General Devens was eminently fitted ; and doubt- 
less he enjoyed to the full all the opportunities of 
this nature which Washington official life so richly 
offers. 

He returned to Massachusetts at the close of 
Mr. Hayes's administration ; and in April, 1881, 
he was reappointed to the Supreme Judicial Court 
by Governor Long, and on that bench he sat until 
removed by death. 

General Devens's health had always been of the 
best. Even the harsh experience of the war, al- 
though endured long after the elasticity of youth 
had passed away, — for he was forty-one years old 
when the war broke out, — failed to make any 
impression on his vigorous constitution. He was 
always able to get through his official work as a 
judge without worry, and his evenness of temper 
and habitual command of a good working phil- 
osophy of daily life seemed to preserve him from 
the annoyances and trials which beset most men 
who do their fair share of work in this world. 
No change was visible in him until perhaps a year 
before his death, when he sometimes complained 
of not feeling; as strons; and well as usual, or, to 
be more accurate, quietly mentioned the fact to his 



18 MEMOIR. 

more intimate friends; but he made no alteration 
in his daily life. He went as constantly to his ac- 
customed seat on the bench, to his habitual chair 
at his club ; he was to be seen as often at the 
houses of his friends. In the latter part of De- 
cember, 1890, however, he grew suddenly weaker ; 
it was feared that there was something wrong 
about the action of the heart ; still no immediate 
consequences were apprehended. He apparently 
did not sutler, and there was little in his condition 
to indicate a serious illness ; but he was in reality 
rapidly nearing the end, and on the afternoon of 
Wednesday, January 7, 1891, he died. His nephew, 
Mr. Arthur Lithgow Devens, and others of his 
relatives were present at the last. His death was 
sudden, and without pain, just as he would have 
wished it to be. 

He was buried from Trinity Church, Boston, on 
Saturday, January 10, 1891, with military honors. 
The coffin was borne by eight non-commissioned of- 
ficers of the Second United States Artillery. The 
military escort consisted of detachments of the 
First Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia 
and of Batteries B and D, Second United States 
Artillery. The Military Order of the Loyal 
Legion, of which General Devens had for years 
been the Commander, attended in force. The 
bench and the bar were largely represented, Chief- 



MEMOIR. 19 

Justice Field being one of the pall-bearers. The 
church was crowded. The burial service was read 
by the Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D. While the coffin 
was being carried from the church, " taps " were 
sounded from various parts of the building, and 
Sullivan's " Lost Chord" was played on the bugle. 
The remains were interred in the family lot in 
Mount Auburn Cemetery. 

The life which we have just sketched was an 
unusually honorable, useful, and happy life. Few 
men have ever lived who were better fitted to dis- 
charge the ordinary tasks which belong to public 
office — whether civil or military — than was 
Charles Devens. He brought to their accomplish- 
ment, in the first place, an honest, courageous, 
and unreserved purpose to do his duty, and in 
the second place, sound judgment, great tact, and 
good administrative ability. His duties, it is true, 
did not lie in the highest regions of the public ser- 
vice. He never commanded an army, or even an 
army corps. He was an Associate Justice only 
of the Supreme Judicial Court. Nor did he ever 
strongly desire the greater responsibilities or the 
more conspicuous opportunities of distinction 
which the chief control alone affords. His 
ambition, though a strong and an honorable 
ambition, was under the strict rule of his judg- 
ment. He never thought of himself more hishly 



20 MEMOIR. 

than he ought to have thought. He correctly 
estimated his own powers and his own attain- 
ments. That which he knew himself capable of 
doing he was honorably anxious to do. His stand- 
ard was high. His work was done thoroughly 
and effectively, and with a masculine strength 
and sobriety that won general admiration. 

He was on the whole satisfied with his career. 
It afforded to his peculiar powers and faculties ex- 
cellent opportunities for exercise, growth, and suc- 
cessful activity. 

As an officer of the army he rose by gradual 
steps and by his own merits as high as most of 
those who had had no professional training in the 
art of war, leaving out of the comparison, of course, 
the two major-generals from this State whom 
President Lincoln commissioned almost before the 
first shot had been fired. Devens's promotions in 
the army were all deserved. -His services, though 
equalled, no doubt, by those of many others, and 
not especially conspicuous, were the services of a 
brave, faithful, and competent officer. 

To his duties as a judge he brought a mind 
characterized by strong common-sense and actu- 
ated by an equally strong love of justice. He 
moreover carried with him always the recollection 
that a judge is, first of all, a magistrate, whose 
office it is to decide controversies and disputes 



MEMOIR. 2 1 

according to the well-established principles of the 
law of the land ; and he never lost sight of this 
fundamental conception of duty. He never used 
the opportunities which a case presented for the 
purpose of displaying his own acumen or learning. 
He kept the main end of the law always plainly be- 
fore his eyes. He was always serious, candid, willing 
to hear, able to defer making up his mind until the 
case had been fully presented. He never aimed 
at showing himself able to comprehend a tangled 
question merely by glancing at the pleadings. 
Though always preserving fully the dignity of his 
station, he was invariably courteous. It was a 
pleasure to go before him. He did not possess 
or pretend to possess deep or varied learning, but 
he made up for this lack in great part by his long 
experience and his remarkable ability to under- 
stand human nature. His mind was not specially 
acute or deep, but his rare common-sense, his un- 
failing patience, and his strong desire to possess 
himself of the facts and law of every cause that he 
was called upon to hear rendered him one of the 
most useful judges that have sat on the Supreme 
Bench in our time. 

It was, however, as an orator that General 
Devens gained his greatest distinction. Of com- 
manding presence and fine figure, a notably hand- 
some man at all periods of his life, possessed of a 



22 MEMOIR. 

strong and flexible voice, he had all the external 
graces and gifts of a public speaker ; but these 
were the least of his qualifications. He was 
a master in the art of weaving an oration out of 
the facts and associations of a famous historical 
event, out of the strong and heroic qualities of a 
great man. He invariably rose to the full height 
of his subject, whatever it was ; and he always 
carried his audience with him. He knew in- 
stinctively how to reach their hearts. His very 
presence attracted them. His language, strung 
though restrained, his evident deep feeling, kept 
always sufficiently in check, but yet by degrees 
infusing itself into the minds of his hearers, his 
ability to seize on the telling points of the topic 
to which he was addressing himself, and his evi- 
dent sincerity and patriotic fervor constituted 
him one of the most brilliant and effective of our 
public orators. The events and men of the Revo- 
lution and of the Civil War were his principal 
themes ; but his reverence and affection for his 
Alma Mater made him on many occasions, and 
notably on that of the celebration of the two 
i hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding 
of Harvard College, not to be sure, the chosen 
representative of her literary eminence, but the 
one to preside over her alumni and to be her 
spokesman to the outer world. On these occa- 



MEMOIR. 23 

sions he was always felicitous, always in touch 
with both the college and the public, always 
and unmistakably successful. 

Judge Devens was never married ; but " he 
lavished on his relatives," as a lifelong friend of 
his has said, " the love he would have given to 
wife and children." He was a devoted son and 
brother. His younger relatives were very near 
and dear to him ; yet he was eminently a man 
among men. His acquaintance was very large. 
He was a man of many friends ; he was always 
urbane, kindly, tolerant, attractive. His at- 
tachments to those whom he honored with his 
friendship were strong and unchanging. He 
was a good talker, and possessed a delightful 
sense of humor, which enabled him to gather 
from his varied experiences many most amus- 
ing stories ; for though he was a man who took 
life seriously, there was always ' a wholesome 
and cheerful tone about his ways and his 
conversation. 

The orations and addresses which follow have 
been selected out of a great many. It is hoped 
that apart from the pleasure which they may be 
expected to yield in the perusal, they will be wel- 
comed as presenting the views of an able, well- 
read, and competent critic and observer, as well as 
the reflections and deductions of a man of genuine 



24 MEMOIR. 

eloquence and patriotic feeling. They possess, no 
doubt, a special interest for this generation ; but 
they deserve, it is believed, a permanent place in 
the historical literature of Massachusetts. The 
Centennial Address on the Battle of Bunker Hill, 
the Oration before the Army of the Potomac on 
General Meade, and the Worcester Oration on Gen- 
eral Grant are certainly in this category. But 
perhaps nothing that he ever said was finer than 
the brief address to his men after their first battle. 
"We take the following account from the New York 
Herald of October 30, 1861, and with this most 
fit and eloquent appeal we bring this memoir to a 
close : — 

" After parade the regiment was formed in square, 
and their noble and gallant Colonel Devens made them 
an address, to which even a faithful verbal report would 
do injustice, for no description could reproduce the 
tender, subdued fervor with which the colonel first 
spoke, the electric sympathy by which his men were 
affected, or the earnest determination with which the 
question was asked and answered. 

" ' Soldiers of Massachusetts, men of Worcester County, 
with these fearful gaps in your lines, with the recollec- 
tion of the terrible struggle of Monday fresh upon your 
thoughts, with the knowledge of the bereaved and soul- 
stricken ones at home, weeping for those whom they will 
see no more on earth, with that hospital before your 
eyes filled with wounded and maimed comrades, I ask 
you now whether you are ready again to meet the trai- 



MEMOIR. 25 

torous foe who are endeavoring' to subvert our govern- 
ment, and who are crushing under the iron heel of 
despotism the liberties of a part of our country. Would 
you go next week ? Would you go to-morrow ? Would 
you go this moment ? ' And one hearty ' Yes ' burst 
from every lip." 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF 
THE POTOMAC, AT NEW HAVEN, MAY 14, 1873. 



Mr. President and Comrades of the Army 
of the Potomac, — When, two years ago, our 
distinguished fellow-soldier, Governor Fairchild, 
suggested that it would be well to place upon our 
records, by our exercises upon these occasions, as 
full an account as we could gather of the part 
which our army took in the War of the Rebellion, 
— a suggestion which was then well carried out by 
himself and afterwards by General Woodford, in 
the eloquent address delivered last year at Cleve- 
land, — he also remarked that it could hardly be 
done consecutively ; but there must of necessity 
be intervals in the regular progress of the narra- 
tive. Most unwillingly do I break the thread, 
and recognize that one of those occasions lias 
come. One theme only seems appropriate for our 
meeting to-day, when we remember that of the 
five commanders of that army in front of Wash- 
ington which became the Army of the Potomac, 
but four now survive. He who was its leader 
from the proud day of Gettysburg unto the yet 
prouder day when its great rival, the Army of 



28 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

Northern Virginia, piled up its arms in sad and 
sullen submission, and the sword of its leader was 
laid in the conquering hand of Grant, has passed 
since we last met from the ranks of living men. 
No more shall we see that slender yet not un- 
graceful figure, which seemed the embodiment of 
the scholar, the soldier, and the gentleman, that 
of late years has risen so cordially at all our 
gatherings responsive to our call, as in the times 
now long past we rose to his ; no more recog- 
nize that quick and spirited glance ; no more hear 
that voice whose tones have summoned to high 
duties and great enterprises always, and never 
counselled fear or dishonor. 

His loss has been mourned as a public one 
throughout the Union, especially in the city 
which w T as his home and in the State whose hills 
shall guard his fame forever ; but whatever may 
be the honors paid to his memory elsewhere, 
there is no place — the sacred circle of home 
alone excepted — where that memory can be held 
so dear as among those who with him have 
borne the weary campaigns and the long marches, 
by day and night, alike in July's heat and Decem- 
ber's cold ; have seen with him the sad hours 
of disaster and defeat ; and have known with 
him the stern joy of victory. Honored and re- 
spected as a wise and brave commander, loved 
as a comrade, always considerate and true, if I 
dedicate these fleeting moments to him, however 
imperfect my tribute may be, I feel convinced I 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 29 

shall not want your approval. Nor if I speak, 
as I must, of the great field by which he is espe- 
cially endeared to his countrymen, shall I speak 
of it otherwise than as it stands to-day upon the 
verdict of history, now that its record, drawn 
from the reports of the principal commanders 
on either side, is fully made up, and the victori- 
ous and vanquished chieftains sleep in the common 
repose of death. Wounded severely at Chancel- 
lorsville a few weeks previously, in its dangers 
I had no part ; to its honor I can lay no claim 
except to that which was there reflected by you 
upon every one who could call you " comrade." 
Yet even from this I would not willingly part, 
when I remember that as the glad tidings were 
flashed towards the North, each one of your 
wounded veterans stood more proudly on his 
crutch ; and even the fever-stricken patient in 
the hospital, as he raised himself from his couch 
and strove with parched lips to join in the ring- 
ing cheers, murmured, " I too am a soldier of 
the Army of the Potomac." 

Although born upon foreign soil, yet under 
the flag of the Union and in its citizenship, 
George Gordon Meade graduated at West Point 
in 1835, and was then brevetted as second lieu- 
tenant of artillery. Resigning in 1836, he passed 
the intervening years until 1842 as an engineer 
in the civil service of the United States, when 
he was again appointed to the army as a second 
lieutenant of the Topographical Engineers ; and 



SO ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

in the discharge of the pursuits and duties of 
that important corps, for which he had a peculiar 
aptitude, he continued until the breaking out of 
the war with Mexico. During this he served at 
first upon the staff of General Taylor, participat- 
ing in all the hard-fought fights of that resolute 
soldier until his line of approach to the city of 
Mexico was relinquished, when Meade was trans- 
ferred to the staff of General Scott, and aided in the 
conduct of the siege operations against Vera Cruz. 
At the close of the war he resumed with renewed 
interest the scientific duties of his profession until 
he was summoned from them in 1861 by the call to 
arms, when the experiment of firing the Southern 
heart by the attack upon Fort Sumter was found 
to have been successful, not in that only, but in 
fully arousing the North to its danger, and render- 
ing anything like peaceful secession impossible. 

It will be seen, therefore, that General Meade's 
early education as a soldier had been in every 
way calculated to develop his great natural 
powers. Fully acquainted with all the scientific 
branches of his profession, and undoubtedly from 
his tastes strongly attracted by them, he had not 
run the risk of becoming a mere soldier of the 
book, but had seen the great actions and served 
with the great captains of the Mexican War, 
each of whom possessed qualities worthy of note 
and study, and from whom he may have learned 
some lessons of that care in preparation, that 
vigor in execution, that calmness in difficulty, 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 31 

which he was afterwards to exhibit on a far 
greater field of warfare. 

Appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers 
in August, 1861, his military life was with this 
army. He served in the operations in front of 
Washington and through all the conflicts of the 
Peninsula campaign up to the battle of Glendale, 
in June, 1862, where he was severely wounded, 
proving himself everywhere a zealous and com- 
petent officer, as vigorous and brilliant in attack 
as he was calm in endurance when compelled to 
stand on the defensive. Returning to the field 
in September, 1862, he was at once assigned 
to the command of a division, with which he 
served through the Maryland campaign, when 
Lee was driven up through the passes of the 
South Mountain Range to the field of Antietam, 
and at Antietam, after the gallant Hooker fell 
severely wounded, he was placed in temporary 
command of his corps. 

After Fredericksburg, — in which battle he con- 
tinued to command the same division, and where 
he succeeded in breaking the right of Lee's line 
and threatening formidably his communications 
with Richmond, although forced finally to re- 
linquish his hold for lack of support, — General 
Meade was assigned to the Fifth Army Corps, he 
having some time previously been made major- 
general of volunteers. In command of this corps 
he served at the battle of Chancellorsville, and 
remained with it until the 28th of June, 1863, 



32 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

when he was appointed Commander-in-chief of 
the Army of the Potomac, .as that army was 
moving up through Maryland to encounter Lee, 
— an encounter which, as you all know, resulted 
in the victory of Gettysburg. 

The causes which led to that bold and remark- 
able movement on the part of the Rebel Govern- 
ment — the invasion of Pennsylvania, in 1863 — 
have never been, so far as I know, completely 
stated by it. The report of the Rebel commander- 
in-chief clearly indicates that when it was written 
he did not intend to develop them. He says 
there that the Army of the Potomac lay along 
the Rappahannock in such a position that it 
could not be attacked to advantage ; that by 
moving northward through the great valley of 
Virginia, a fairer opportunity would be offered to 
strike ; that the plans of the enemy for the sum- 
mer would be disarranged and time consumed ; 
and then adds that, actuated by these and other 
important considerations that he may hereafter 
present, he determined upon the movement. 
Those important considerations have never been 
divulged, and so far as General Lee is concerned, 
now never can be ; yet they may be reasonably 
conjectured. 

Two reasons existed which, if it were possible 
to get a foothold in any Northern State, rendered 
it vital that it should be done. The Confederate 
diplomatists had been struggling abroad in vain 
for recognition as a government. They saw that 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 33 

they could not hope to obtain this as long as the 
war was confined to the limits of the Southern 
States, and however formidable in proportions, 
bore always the aspect of a mere local rebellion. 
Let but their army maintain itself on Northern 
soil, and Mr. Davis believed that his ambassadors 
could obtain recognition from some foreign States 
at least, and with it all the advantages of a posi- 
tion in the family of nations. Then there was 
the necessity of doing something to sustain the 
courage of the Rebel States under a misfortune 
which was impending over them, well known to 
Davis and Lee, and as yet little appreciated 
generally among the mass of their people. The 
sword of Grant was knocking fiercely at the 
gates of Vicksburg ; at any hour it might burst 
them. With this, Port Hudson must fall ; and 
cutting the Confederacy in twain, the Mississippi 
would be open from the mountains to the sea. 
This was a blow which could neither be warded 
off nor parried, — it must descend ; and there was 
left only the hope of dealing another in return 
elsewhere which would in some degree diminish 
its weight. 

No sooner were the designs of Lee fully un- 
masked by his movement from the Shenandoah 
into the Cumberland valley than General Hooker, 
who had fallen back towards Washington in 
obedience to the exigencies of the problem which 
pressed upon every commander of the Army of 
the Potomac, — the necessit} 7 of covering Wash- 

3 



34 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

ington, — acted with his usual vigor. Crossing 
the Potomac to the north side, himself, on the 
25th of June, on the 27th he had concentrated 
his forces at Frederick. It was on the 28th 
that Lee — whose cavalry had been cut off from 
him by the rapidity of this action, and who had 
then pushed Ewell forward to York and Carlisle, 
with intent, as he says, to cross the Susquehanna, 
and was himself at Chambersburg with Longstreet 
and Hill — learned at the same time, not only that 
Hooker had crossed the Potomac, but that he was 
actually at Frederick. " We may search the his- 
tory of modern campaigns in vain," says Colonel 
Chesney, one of the most intelligent of the British 
writers on our war, " to find a more striking exam- 
ple of the effect produced by operating on the 
enemy's communications than that of this move- 
ment of Hooker's. The first sound that reached 
Lee of the advance of the Federal columns to the 
north of the river caused him to suspend all 
action in any direction tending to draw him 
farther from his base." He resolved at once 
on concentrating his forces on the east side of 
South Mountain, and preventing Hooker's farther 
march westward ; and orders for this purpose 
were at once issued. Before these facts were 
known to Lee, which caused him thus to desist 
from any further movement forward, the change 
had been made in the Army of the Potomac 
which placed General Meade in command, — Gen- 
eral Hooker being relieved at his own request. 



. 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 35 

The immediate cause of this request was the 
refusal by the War Department to place at his 
disposal the troops at Harper's Ferry ; and with- 
out entering into the discussion of this matter 
here, I may say that I think that there will be 
found few to-day to defend a course which, when 
the air was black with the gathering clouds of 
such a storm as burst in thunder a few da} 7 s 
later over Gettysburg, would have left out of 
the conflict ten thousand efficient troops, under 
the command of a veteran general [French]. 

No tribute to the discipline that prevailed in 
this army can be higher than that which is paid 
by saying that this change was made when every 
one knew that a battle was impending, without in 
any way affecting the spirits or energy of the troops. 
The French herald who in the same breath an- 
nounced the death of one king and the accession 
of another by the words, " The King is dead ; long 
live the King!" was never received with more 
unquestioning loyalty than, in its devotion to the 
cause it served and not in indifference to its lead- 
ers, this army received each announcement of a 
change of commanders. Faithful and devoted 
to those who had preceded, it prepared to render 
the same obedience to him who now in the very 
imminence of a mortal struggle found its heavy 
cares and responsibilities thrown upon him. The 
situation was one which might cause anxiety to 
the most audacious, for the loss of a great battle 
then might endanger all for which we had been 



36 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

struggling ; and yet a great battle must be fought, 
to relieve the Northern States from the invasion 
which at that moment seemed to threaten most 
directly the splendid city of Philadelphia. If 
Meade could secure the immense tactical advan- 
tage of compelling the enemy to attack him, that 
might be rendered certain which without it 
would be doubtful. It was his opinion that the 
infantry of Lee must surpass his own by about 
ten thousand men, supposing that each could 
bring on to the field substantially his whole 
army. If any lesson had been clearly taught 
already, however, — and every day's experience 
was to confirm it, — it was that in a country like 
America, with the rough fieldworks that troops 
may throw up, the improvements in artillery and 
musketry are so much for the benefit of the party 
which stands on the defensive that a force decid- 
edly weaker may in such a position receive the 
assaults of another with confidence. Cool as he 
was brave, he resolved that this advantage should 
be secured by forcing his opponent to attack him, 
if possible. Accepting his position, in an order 
issued early in the morning of the 28th, he 
nobly summoned his troops to their duties, — 
nor do I like the order less because it is distinctly 
marked with the manly, healthy, religious feeling 
which was an essential element in his character. 
"The country," he says, "looks to this army to 
relieve it from the devastation and disgrace of a 
hostile invasion. Whatever fatigues and sacrifices 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 37 

we may be called upon to undergo, let us have 
in view constantly the magnitude of the interests 
involved ; and let each determine to do his duty, 
leaving to an all-controlling Providence the deci- 
sion of the contest." 

From the nature of the case, as, General Meade 
states, no precise plan had probably been formed 
by General Hooker, or could be by himself, 
other than to be governed by the exigencies of 
the situation. Already the army was in a posi- 
tion which threatened Lee formidably ; but the 
information of any hour might make a change 
of movements necessary. The 28th was spent in 
getting together the essential information as to 
his own army, its various forces, and position, 
as well as in ascertaining all that was then 
known at the headquarters in reference to the 
enemy ; and on the 29th, instead of continu- 
ing to move westward, which was perhaps 
the apprehension of Lee, fearful always as 
to his communications, he commenced to move 
northward, to compel him to loose his hold on 
the Susquehanna. From this river, unknown 
to him, Lee was already drawing back. Moving 
upon the 29th and on the 30th in a manner 
which would enable him to concentrate his 
forces upon Pipe Creek, — a position about fif- 
teen miles south of Gettysburg, which seemed 
to afford a good line, alike for the purpose of 
preventing the crossing of the Susquehanna and 
of covering Washington and Baltimore, — no 



38 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

means were neglected in endeavoring to ascer- 
tain the exact whereabouts of the enemy, and 
also of the places where it would be suitable to 
offer him battle. General Humphreys was di- 
rected, on the arrival of his division at Emmetts- 
burg, to report whether the ground there was 
favorable, the position itself being evidently an 
important one. On the 30th, Meade was in- 
formed by Buford, who covered, with his cavalry, 
the left of our army, of the presence of the 
enemy near Gettysburg, whither Reynolds, with 
the First and Eleventh Corps, had already been 
ordered to proceed. While the orders of the 
30th thus directed Reynolds, those to the other 
corps contemplated evidently taking up the line 
of Pipe Creek, in doing which they would be 
shielded and masked by Reynolds on their left 
front. Reynolds was also instructed, as General 
Humphreys states in his beautiful address upon 
General Meade, lately delivered in Philadelphia, 
to report whether Gettysburg itself afforded 
ground suitable for a battle. All the orders indi- 
cate that every movement was liable to be changed 
by the development of events ; and showing the 
great skill which Meade possessed as a tactician 
on a large scale, they demonstrate his ability 
to handle an army in a series of manoeuvres of 
the greatest importance. He was fully entitled 
to the praise bestowed by Swinton, the able 
critic of the operations of the Army of the Poto- 
mac, who says that in " spite of the malicious 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 39 

detraction of his adversaries, who have tried 
to make it appear that he shrank from the 
issue of arms at Gettysburg, it was in reality 
the moral firmness of General Meade that deter- 
mined the combat in the form in which it actually 
occurred." 

On the morning of the 1st of July, the first 
encounter took place ; and although to the north 
and west of Gettysburg, it is still to be consid- 
ered a part, and an essential part, of the battle. 
It was a day beginning successfully, but so far 
as the loss of troops was concerned, ending seri- 
ously, and yet a conflict of inestimable value ; 
for although forced from the ground we at first 
occupied, at its close we held the position to the 
south of Gettysburg on the crest to be thence- 
forth forever renowned in the American annals. 
Hill's corps had moved from Chambersburg 
through Cashtown, and on that morning was 
encountered by Buford upon that road which is 
to the west from Gettysburg beyond Seminary 
Riclge, which on the next day became the most 
important part of the army's line. Meeting 
them at about nine o'clock in the morning, he 
held them most gallantly in check until the 
arrival of Reynolds with Wadsworth's divi- 
sion, who immediately prepared to engage, send- 
ing back for the rest of his corps and for the 
Eleventh to hurry forward. To sustain Buford 
was undoubtedly his most pressing need at the 
moment, as the delay of the enemy was of im- 



40 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

portance, that Meade might be aided in the con- 
centration of his forces ; but with the knowledge 
Reynolds had of the anxiety of the commanding 
general, who was then ignorant of the peculiar fa- 
cilities afforded by the ground at Gettysburg, it is 
not likely that he passed over the Emmettsburg 
road without taking in all the advantage to be 
obtained by the possession of the crest, or antici- 
pating that if forced back upon it, he could cling 
to it until he was sustained by the whole army. 
Arranging his troops, forming his lines, with his 
customary rapidity and energy, he advanced at 
once on the force opposed to him, which already 
largely outnumbered his own ; but hardly was 
the movement commenced, when he fell, mortally 
wounded. Brave men were to die by thousands 
on that terrible field ; yet no one could fall whose 
loss was more seriously felt and more deeply 
deplored. Not the men of the First Corps only, 
whom he had long led, but the whole army, 
knew him as a soldier in whose bravery and skill 
the most implicit confidence might be placed. 
The senior of Meade in military rank, no jealous 
thought at his promotion to the command of the 
army ever entered that loyal heart. Modest 
and simple in manner, with no trace of affecta- 
tion or boasting, reliable as steel, a true soldier, 
he died a soldier's death, grandly contributing to 
the triumph he was never to share. Yet where 
could man meet better the inevitable hour 
than in defence of his native State, his life-blood 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 41 

mingling with the soil on which he first drew 
breath ? Long may the statue which the love and 
honor of his comrades of the First Corps have 
reared to him on the field stand, in glorious 
though mute resemblance to him, as he stood that 
day, watching with eager gaze and dauntless 
heart the advance of the coming foe. 

His troops did not lose the impulse he had 
given them, even at his fall : gallantly holding 
the enemy at bay, many prisoners were taken ; 
and for an hour or two all went well. Sub- 
stantially the remainder of the First Corps and 
two divisions of the Eleventh Corps arrived 
with General Howard, who took command on 
the field ; but soon the advance of Ewell's troops, 
who now approached from the north on their 
way from Carlisle and York to Lee's proposed 
concentration at Gettysburg, seemed to render 
necessary an extension of our line round to the 
north of the town, by which it was weakened 
seriously. Outnumbered now at all points, the 
day was fairly turned against us ; and Howard 
was forced back through the town to the 
heights where the battle was finally fought. 
Nor could he effect this withdrawal except at 
the expense of a severe loss in prisoners, which 
fell more heavily upon the Eleventh Corps, which 
had been exposed to the assaults of the columns 
coming from the north. Although the number 
of divisions engaged was about equal, it must 
be observed that at this time each division and 



42 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

corps -of the enemy was more than double the 
size of one of ours. Luckily, or rather prudently, 
General Howard had left in position on Cemetery 
Hill, as he advanced, one of his own divisions — 
Von Steinwehr's — which had not been engaged. 
General Hancock now arrived with an order 
from Meade to take command on the field, 
but without troops ; the confusion of the with- 
drawal was subdued ; and the men, undiscour- 
aged by the reverse, prepared to receive the 
assault of the enemy and maintain their position 
until after nightfall. A demonstration was in 
fact made, but not with the usual vigor of 
the enemy, and was without difficulty repulsed. 
To Meade, Hancock immediately sent word that 
the ground was favorable, and that it could be 
held until after nightfall. The Twelfth Corps, 
in response to the summons of General How- 
ard, sent earlier in the day, had now reached 
the field, — one brigade of the First, which had 
been delayed, and two of the Third arriving 
soon after ; and General Hancock, surrendering 
the command to General Slocum, reported in 
person to General Meade, who, he found, had 
already issued orders to all his army to move 
as rapidly as possible to Gettysburg, and was 
himself preparing to go thither at once, and was 
waiting only to hear from the Sixth Corps, which 
could not reach there until after the middle of 
the next day, as it was more than thirty miles 
away. That summer night witnessed a scene 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 43 

in Pennsylvania such as I trust its hills may 
never behold again, as the whole army — the 
artillery by every road, and the infantry by every 
path — were moving to the conflict ; but early in 
the day everything was ready except the Sixth 
Corps, and for it they were strong enough to 
wait. The guns were in position, and some 
slight breastworks of earth and rails had been 
hastily thrown up. Meade himself had reached 
the ground soon after midnight, and directed 
the arrangement of his troops ; that his tacti- 
cal dispositions for the coming battle were of as 
excellent an order as his materials allowed, has 
not been questioned, that I am aware of, by any 
one. One of his directions on arriving was 
that proper examination should be made of all 
the roads leading from Gettysburg. This order, 
which proceeded only from the caution of a pru- 
dent commander desirous to be prepared for any 
event, how T ever unfortunate, afterwards gave occa- 
sion to a charge against him that he intended 
to withdraw without fighting, — a charge that 
he always felt to be cruelly unjust. In his tes- 
timony before the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War, he emphatically denied it in terms of 
such solemnity that now, when he stands before 
the tribunal to which he then appealed, it is but 
just that it should be repeated here. " I utterly 
deny," said he, " under the full solemnity and 
sanctity of my oath, and in the firm conviction 
that the day will come when the secrets of all 



44 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

men shall be made known, — I utterly deny ever 
having intended or thought for one instant to 
withdraw that army, unless the military contin- 
gencies which the future should develop during 
the course of the day might render it a matter of 
necessity that it should be withdrawn." 

The morning of the 2d of July wore away 
without anything decisive, — our own army on 
the crest which stretched from Culp's Hill 
along Cemetery Hill and Ridge to Round Top ; 
while the enemy, with Longstreet's and Hill's 
corps, occupied Seminary Hill, a ridge about a 
mile distant, overlapping our left and extending 
round to our right with Ewell's corps. Early 
in the afternoon, stout John Sedgwick, with the 
Sixth Corps, was up, after a long march of 
thirty-six miles ; and the Federal Army stood 
ready to receive the blow which the Army of 
Northern Virginia must deliver, or lose the pres- 
tige it boasted, and acknowledge the invasion a 
failure. Whether it was wise in Lee to make the 
attack has been doubted ; but he himself felt 
that it was forced upon him, and says in his 
report that " while he had not intended to fight 
a general battle so far from his base unless 
attacked, yet finding himself confronted unex- 
pectedly by the Federal Army, the battle became 
in some measure unavoidable by him." 

The exact numbers engaged remain to-day in 
dispute ; yet they were undoubtedly as nearly 
equal as can ever be expected in a conflict of 



ORATION OX GENERAL MEADE. 45 

such magnitude. That theirs exceeded ours seems 
to be the more general estimate, and by about ten 
thousand ; although I observe General Humphreys, 
in the address to which I have referred, places 
their infantry as exceeding ours by fifteen thou- 
sand men. 

It was three or four o'clock when the compara- 
tive silence of the earlier part of the day was 
broken by the attack upon our left, which was 
held by the Third Corps under General Sickles. 
Instead of extending directly from the left of 
the Second Corps, which was our left centre, to 
Round Top, he had thrown his line forward to 
attain a position which he deemed more command- 
ing upon the Emmettsburg road. While a strong 
attack was made upon his left and upon the angle 
where his line receded towards Round Top, a flank- 
ing force was despatched to carry Little Round Top, 
which the Rebel commander rightly judged to be 
the key of the whole position. Before it reached 
it, however, reinforcements had already arrived 
from the Fifth Corps ; and the struggle for its 
possession became at once most furious. No- 
where during the engagement was more deter- 
mination shown. Each regiment, as it came up, 
realized that the point was vital, — that to lose 
it, was to lose the day, — and fought accordingly. 
Fiercely striven for, manfully held, nightfall saw 
it and the whole crest from it to Culp's Hill in 
our possession. The Third Corps had indeed 
been forced from its more advanced position on 



46 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

the Emmettsburg road ; for after a stubborn re- 
sistance, in which General Sickles was severely 
wounded, and a heavy loss in men, it had fallen 
back to the line from Hancock's left to Round 
Top, which General Meade always considered the 
true line. 

The most anxious hours of the whole battle 
were those in which the possession of Round Top 
and the line on the Emmettsburg road were thus 
fiercely debated. In this conflict the Third Corps 
was assisted by reinforcements from nearly 
every other ; and the day was at last brilliantly 
closed by a charge from General Crawford's 
division, supported by the advance of the Sixth 
Corps, which drove the enemy finally from too 
close proximity to Round Top. On our right an 
advantage had been gained by Ewell, who had 
secured a position within our lines, weakened, as 
they had been, by the reinforcements sent to the 
left of the line ; but of this it was clear to Gen- 
eral Meade that he would be easily dispossessed 
in the morning. 

Night descended at last ; and each army, 
anxious but determined, waited for the coming 
day, which must decide the momentous issue. 
For Lee to desist in his attack was to confess 
defeat, while yet, as he says, "he believed ulti- 
mate success might be secured ; " and although 
he knew well that the position from which the 
Third Corps had been forced was an advantage 
rather apparent than real, yet he knew also that 



ORATION OX GENERAL MEADE. 47 

it had inspirited his troops to a belief that the 
task before them was not beyond their powers. 
On the other hand, in our army, while all felt 
that the hour for exultation had not come, every- 
thing seemed to indicate, in spite of the loss of 
the position on the Emmettsburg road, that the 
true line of defence was untouched ; and that the 
same determination on the day which was to 
come as on that which was passed, would insure 
the victory. To the rule that councils of war 
never fight, which has become a proverb, the 
council of war held this night is an exception ; 
for it was there agreed that to fight was the only 
thing to be done. 

Unwilling to abandon the scheme of an inva- 
sion, and confiding in the spirit of his troops, 
Lee decided on the morning of the 3d of July to 
try again the fortune of an attack. While not 
materially changing his position, which, as be- 
fore, swept round from Seminary Ridge, — relin- 
quishing any attemp.t to carry Round Top, now 
securely held and rudely but strongly fortified, 
— his plan was an assault by main force upon 
our left centre, which should carry all before 
it. Nor was this unexpected by Meade, who, 
in a conversation with Gibbon on the evening 
of the 2d of July, had predicted that after his 
ill success on our flanks the next movement of 
Lee would be on our centre. Any project of a 
movement in force upon our right was aban- 
doned also, if entertained. The driving out of 



48 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

Ewell's force in the morning from the more 
forward position it had held the evening be- 
fore had deprived him of his foothold there, 
which it would cost a desperate struggle again 
to obtain. 

It was one o'clock on the 3d of July when 
all w r as ready within the Confederate lines for 
that celebrated assault which ranks among the 
most remarkable in history, alike for the fierce- 
ness with which it w T as made and the resolution 
and persistency with which it was met and foiled. 
It has been compared to the charge of the Old 
Guard at Waterloo, but not, I think, very hap- 
pily, for that was but a desperate effort to save 
a battle already lost. It far more resembles 
the renowned charge at Wagram, directed by 
Napoleon himself, then in the zenith of his fame 
and the full splendor of his great military intel- 
lect. Aspern and Essling had been doubtful, or 
indeed, defeats for the Emperor ; and the fate of 
the day at Wagram was trembling in the scale, 
when, concentrating the fire of one hundred guns 
upon the Austrian centre after a furious can- 
nonade, he launched Macdonald, with ten thousand 
men, upon it. It was observed that although the 
Empire had long since come, Macdonald, who led 
the column in person, as if to inflame his men 
with all the fire of the French Revolution, wore 
that day his old uniform of a Republican general. 
Bursting upon the Austrian line, it was broken ; 
and instant retreat followed. But Gettysburg was 






ORATION OX GENERAL MEADE. 49 

to see repeated that favorite movement of Napoleon 
of striking at the centre, on an even more gigantic 
scale, yet not with like success. As the wave 
which beats upon the rocky barriers of our coast 
is dashed back again in clouds of scattering, dis- 
solving spray, so this fierce and bloody wave 
of rebellion was to be hurled back, broken, scat- 
tered, and in wild disorder, when it struck the 
adamantine wall of the infantry of the Army 
of the Potomac. 

Concentrating an immense mass of artillery, not 
less than one hundred and fifty guns, along his 
front, the Confederate commander strives first to 
shake the morale of the Federal troops, whose 
firmness and courage he clearly does not despise, 
in order that his infantry columns may more 
readily do the decisive work he has in store for 
them. From eighty guns posted upon Cemetery 
Hill and Ridge, our batteries make stern reply ; 
and an artillery conflict of unexampled fury 
rasres from rid ore to ridee and over the vallev 
of death that lies between. Sheltering themselves 
as well as they can, by such rude breastworks as 
they have, from the terrific storm of shot and 
shell which fills the air, and with its tumult could 
wake the very dead among whom their lines are 
drawn, were they sensible to mortal sounds, our 
troops await the momentous struggle which is 
coming ; for the mighty roar is but the overture 
and prelude to a mightier drama. For two hours 
the tempest continues. Hunt, our prudent Chief 



50 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

of Artillery, towards the end slackens his fire, 
that the ammunition may not fail (when the 
infantry attempt to close, he knows he shall need 
it all), and his wisdom is well rewarded after- 
wards. Hancock, who commands the left centre, 
his own corps being immediately under Gibbon, 
knows that somewhere on him the storm is to 
break, and rides along his whole line, seeing that 
all is prepared, and rousing his men by his ardent 
words and magnetic presence to the hot work 
that is before them. 

And now there is a momentary lull in the 
fire of the Confederate line. All know it as 
the lull which precedes the wildest roar of the 
tempest ; and that for a few moments their bat- 
teries cannot fire, because their infantry are 
moving. Out of the wooded crests which have 
shielded them on Seminary Ridge they are com- 
ing, now in number nearly or quite eighteen 
thousand men. From the edge of the w r ood 
Longstreet directs the assault ; and anxiousky 
Lee watches the result. Pickett's division, about 
five or six thousand strong, is the directing force. 
Upon the right it is supported by Wilcox and 
Perry, from Hill's corps. Upon the left Heth's 
division of Hill's corps, commanded by Pettigrew, 
forms a portion of the assaulting lines, and is 
strengthened by two brigades from Pender's 
division, of the same corps. On Pickett, how- 
ever, the greatest reliance is placed. Let him but 
reach our line with adequate momentum, and 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 51 

they feel that the day is theirs. The men of this 
division have not yet fought in the battle, and 
feel that they have been kept for its very crisis ; 
they are resolved upon their work, for they know- 
that the eyes of both armies are upon them. 
Virginians all, — alas, that the State so honored 
in the Union as to be termed the mother of 
its Presidents should send forth so gallant a body 
of her sons in the mad and wicked effort to 
destroy it ! Conspicuous in the front, as they 
move into the more open ground, is Pickett 
himself, carefully forming his lines ; and almost 
immediately they come under the fire of our 
batteries ; yet steadily they move through the 
valley with a courage that in a good cause 
should command the admiration of the world. 
There is no rushing or tumult ; for they are old 
troops and know well the value of discipline, and 
that they must keep their formations or they will 
be driven, as a mob would be driven, from the 
front of the Army of the Potomac. They close up 
their ranks too, as the shot and spherical case 
come plunging through their lines, for they have 
often looked before upon the sight of blood. 
The lines of Pettigrew, more exposed by the 
open character of the ground, waver soon under 
the terrific cannonade, — for Hunt, economical 
a little while ago, is liberal enough everywhere 
now, — and are broken on their left, while the 
right still clings firmly to the directing force. 
The supporting columns fail to advance in season 



52 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

and with vigor ; and Pickett's division must 
do the work finally almost alone, if it may. 
Already it is within the musketry fire of our 
troops ; but yet they withhold it. Many of our 
guns have now exhausted their canister, and are 
drawn back to await the struggle of the in- 
fantry ; but still the stout army lets its op- 
ponents come. The Second Vermont Brigade, 
First Corps, thrown forward upon its flank, is 
the first to open ; but the column still presses on. 
It encounters now the Second Corps ; and as 
it receives a terrific fire from the divisions of 
Gibbon and Hays, it returns it with desperate 
energy, and rushing fiercely onward, strikes 
with its fullest force upon the front of Webb's 
brigade, pressing back our line from the stone 
wall which had covered it to the crest imme- 
diately behind, where the gallant Webb, assisted 
by Hall, soon restores order. Already their 
battle-flags are on the low stone wall ; already 
Armi stead, who leads, as he stands upon it 
waves his troops forward to their last great 
struggle. The hour for the Army of the Potomac 
has come. Up now, men of New England, and 
show yourselves in the field the same stout 
defenders of the Constitution and the Union that 
your statesmen have ever done in the forum ! 
Up, men of the Middle States, upon whose soil 
this unholy attempt to strike at the keystone of 
the arch is made ! Up, men of the West, whose 
fortunes have so long been cast with this East- 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 53 

ern army, that you may bear back beyond the 
mountains the tidings of the great victory won 
to-day on the Atlantic slope ! Up, true men of 
the South, few though you are in numbers, who 
fight in our ranks to-day ! There is no need 
for any one to echo the order of the Duke at 
Waterloo, to call or command, for now the left 
centre, as if by a common impulse and instinct, 
throws itself upon the foe. The point penetrated 
by the enemy is covered by some regiments ; 
while others change their front so as to strike 
them on the flank. There is confusion : organiza- 
tion is to some extent lost in both brigades and 
regiments ; but all understand what is to be done, 
and are resolute. It is the stern confusion of the 
onset, and not the wretched tumult of disaster. 
As the long wave of fire bursts upon their charg- 
ing lines, the colors of our regiments are advanced 
to meet the battle-flags of the foe. Firmly on our 
men come, — officers animating by their example 
at least, when they cannot direct by their com- 
mands ; for we stand no longer on the defensive, 
but take the offensive now. Before that deter- 
mined front and concentrated fire, their men did 
all that brave though erring and misguided men 
could do. Killed or mortally wounded, their briga- 
diers fall ; their lines waver, yield, and break at 
last ; and while a few wild, disorganized masses 
struggle to reach the Confederate line, from which 
they issued so proudly an hour before, the Army 
of the Potomac gathers up the prisoners by thou- 



54 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

sands, and their battle-flags in sheaves, and knows 
that Gettysburg is won. 

General Meade, who was at the right getting 
his reserves in order when the assault com- 
menced, reached the left centre just as the repulse 
was fairly completed, and speaking to General 
Gibbon's aide, asked, " How is it going here ? " 
He was told that the assault w r as repulsed. He 
repeated, " Is it entirely repulsed ?" and when the 
aide replied that it was, and all around broke 
into loud cheers, he raised his hat with a simple 
" Thank God ! " Nor with him was this the 
mere repetition of a phrase of custom, but an 
expression of deep and heartfelt feeling. Al- 
though thousands in a grateful country attested, 
by solemn thanksgiving, their gratitude for this 
great triumph, — worthy to be ranked with what 
Oliver Cromwell termed the battle of Worcester, 
" the crowning mercy of the Lord," — I question 
if from one it came with more deep emotion than 
from the lips of the commander-in-chief upon 
the field itself. "A soldier," says Corporal Trim, 
in Sterne's fine stor}*, — "a soldier, an't please 
your Rev'rence, must say his prayers when and 
where he can." 

It has been contended that we should now have 
attacked in our turn ; but such a movement, even 
if successful, might of course become seriously 
compromising ; and it was not in the character of 
General Meade to put at risk that which he had 
already gained, when it was of such vast value and 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 55 

importance. The battle had been fought for the 
key of the country, where he stood, and fought 
out thoroughly ; it was his beyond doubt or 
peradventure, — no earthly power could wrest it 
from him. The invasion was at an end ; and Lee 
would be compelled to abandon the territory into 
which he had entered. Nor must it be forgotten 
that while the losses of the enemy were greater 
far, ours were yet enormous ; for tested in the 
merest material way and without regard to the 
consequences involved, Gettysburg is one of the 
great battles of the world. The Confederate loss 
was eighteen thousand killed and wounded, and 
13, GOO missing, — nearly the whole of the lat- 
ter being our prisoners, — making a total of 
31,600 ; our own was 16,500 killed and wounded, 
and 6,600 missing, — to a large extent the 
prisoners of the first day, — making a total loss 
of 23,100. 

It was the 5th of July when Lee commenced 
his retreat ; and as he reached the Potomac, 
which he had crossed in such high hope, he 
learned by a message from Davis that the blow 
upon Vicksburg, of which he had hoped to break 
the weight, had fallen, and that the Mississippi 
was open to the sea. Whether or not he could 
have been attacked to advantage before he 
crossed, is }-et an open question, which I shall 
not undertake here to discuss. 

I would not willingly do injustice to the other 
great fields of the war and their splendid results ; 



56 ORATION OX GENERAL MEADE. 

and yet it has always seemed to me that Gettys- 
burg was the culminating point of the Rebellion ; 
and that the blow struck that day for the Union, 
accompanying the fall of Vicksburg, turned for- 
ever its bloody tide. Large, varied, and constant 
as were the services rendered by General Meade 
before that day and after it to the very end of 
the war, it is by his judgment in so manoeu- 
vring his army as to compel the Confederate 
commander to take the initiative, by his energy 
in bringing his troops to this decisive field, by his 
skill in posting his force and arranging his order 
of battle, by his calmness, courage, and persistency 
in all its vicissitudes, that he will ever be most 
gratefully remembered. His fame is built upon 
the rocks, and is as immovable as the hills of 
Gettysburg. Great fields were } r et to be fought, 
great sacrifices endured, great victories won ; the 
leader, wise of head and stout of heart, who 
should gather the springs which moved all our 
armies into a single hand, and control them with a 
single will, was yet to come before the long-tried 
Army of the Potomac should see all that it fought 
for fully secured. Yet although all this was 
still to be, and although the waves of the Rebel- 
lion were to come again and yet again, never 
was its bloody crest to be reared so high as 
at Gettysburg. 

To do justice to all the valor and heroism of 
that day, and all its momentous consequences, is 
a task beyond the reach of language ; yet so far 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 57 

as words may do it, it has been already done. 
The monuments which the intellect can rear out- 
last the stateliest that hands can' raise. The 
columns which the States of Greece reared to 
the dead of Thermopylae crumbled to the dust 
hundreds of years ago ; but the noble ode by 
which Simonides commemorated them is taught 
to-day in the schools of this University, beneath 
the budding branches of whose elms we stand, 
in a world undreamed of then. Athens is in 
ruin ; conqueror after conqueror has pressed his 
rude heel upon her ; but the noble oration by 
which Pericles celebrated the Athenian dead is 
fresh in immortal youth. And as long as the 
Union shall stand, will the simple, majestic me- 
morial by which, with words fresh from his true 
and honest heart, Abraham Lincoln commemo- 
rated the great deed done that day be re- 
membered ; and " government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people, shall not perish 
from the earth." 

Already my brief hour draws to its close. 
You know well that within its limits it would 
be vain for me to attempt to write the history 
of the subsequent operations of the Army of the 
Potomac ; yet to do all this would be necessary 
to do full justice to our late commanding general. 
Let me sum them briefly up by saying that the 
operations of the remainder of the year of which 
I have been speaking, though important, were 
indecisive, — both the Army of the Potomac and 



58 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

that of Northern Virginia being reduced, by 
heavy drafts made upon them, to sustain the 
movements now taking place in the West. 

The succeeding spring witnessed the great 
change by which our armies came under one 
head, by the appointment of General Grant as 
lieutenant-general, who was to command in the 
field and not from the Bureau, — of which latter 
style of commanding we had indeed had enough, 
— and to whose splendid exertions and unflinch- 
ing determination we owed, under God, our final 
triumph. Recognizing fully that the pinch of the 
contest was between this army and that which 
had so long held the lines of the Rebel capital, and 
that other operations, however important, were 
secondary and subsidiary only, the proper place 
to direct the movements of all seemed to him to 
be from the field ; and his headquarters were fixed 
near those of our commanding general. The near 
presence of an officer of higher rank with him 
undoubtedly rendered General Meade's position 
one of some delicacy ; yet it cost him no difficulty 
to meet all its exigencies. While the responsi- 
bility for the great movements to be made rested 
with the lieutenant-general, their tactical ex- 
ecution, so far as this army was concerned, 
devolved upon him, and the immediate command 
was always his ; and his duties were so executed, 
I hazard nothing in saying, as to command from 
General Grant a respect and esteem which con- 
tinued to the day of his death. In the long 



ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 59 

series of battles which now commenced, General 
Meade's splendid abilities as a tactician, his firm- 
ness and judgment, his devotion to his troops, 
were everywhere conspicuous, at the Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, lavish of their 
dead ; and in every conflict up to the last, when 
though the malarial fever that raged within his 
veins did not permit him to sit on his horse, he 
still directed the Army of the Potomac in its stern 
pressure upon the encompassed and beleaguered 
army of Lee. To the great and high idea of duty 
which he expressed in taking command of the 
army, he was faithful to the close of its exis- 
tence ; and the succeeding years, w r hich witnessed 
his command in the Southern States, attest that 
the moderation and firmness, the humanity and 
love of justice, which were essential attributes 
of his character, make his civil life as honorable 
as his military career was splendid. 

Comrades, the army which he commanded so 
long has passed away. No more shall its bugles 
break the sweet stillness of the morning air, as 
with their reveille they salute the coming day ; 
no more shall the falling night hear the rolling 
tattoo of its drums. Its tents are struck ; and its 
cannon have thundered their last notes of defi- 
ance and of victory. Each year we who were 
its survivors assemble in sadly diminishing num- 
bers, as the remorseless artillery of time hurls its 
fatal missiles into our ranks, until shortly a few 
old men only shall gather together and strive 



60 ORATION ON GENERAL MEADE. 

with feeble voices to raise the thundering battle- 
cheer with which we once answered the Rebel 
yells, to sink themselves soon after under the 
common lot. How fast the coming generations 
rise to push us from our places, when we re- 
member all whom we have lost, even since the 
war, I do not need to remind you. Yet as 
generation after generation shall come in their 
long succession, while the great flag that the 
Army of the Potomac bore at the head of its 
marching columns waves over a free and united 
people, it will be remembered that in its day and 
generation, and in its time and place, that army 
did for liberty and law, for the Constitution and 
the Union, deeds worthy of immortal honor. And 
he who was its leader on so many a hot and 
bloody day and on so many a well-contested field, 
— we leave him to his long repose, to his pure, 
unsullied, and well-earned fame, in the full con- 
fidence that while a Christian gentleman, a wise 
and true soldier, a lofty patriot, is honored, he 
will not be forgotten : — 

"Mild in manner, fair in favor, 
Kind in temper, fierce in fight, 
Warrior, nobler, gentler, braver, 
Never will behold the light." 



ADDRESS 

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT 
WORCESTER, JULY 15, 1874. 



With the reflections that heave been excited by 
the noble address to which we have just listened 
engrossing our minds, with the emotions it has 
kindled still swelling our hearts, it would hardly 
seem advisable (were I to consult my own views 
alone) that more should be added ; and we might 
well depart, satisfied that all it was in our power 
to do by the exercises of this day had been done. 
Yet as it has seemed otherwise to the committee, 
who have desired that some one should speak upon 
this occasion who had himself served with those 
whose deeds we have striven this day to commem- 
orate, I answer readily to the call. Certainly it is 
most fitting that in a city whose existence and pros- 
perity demonstrate more clearly than any labored 
argument all that has been achieved by the great 
principles of liberty and equality which are the 
foundation-stones of the mighty fabric of the 
American Union, some memorial should rise winch 
should tell in after times our affectionate and pro- 
found regard for the heroic self-devotion and ex- 
alted patriotism of those who have died to preserve 



62 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 

it. Did not the impulse of gratitude constrain us 
to erect this monument, wisdom alone would dictate 
such a step ; so that by its mute appeal there might 
be inculcated upon all, the force and beauty of 
their noble example. The education of a people in 
great ideas is not by books alone ; there is a warmth 
and glow in whatever is brave, noble, and heroic, 
among the men of our own race and time, which 
we shall look for in vain among the teachings of 
the remote past ; and all wise nations have striven 
to perpetuate the memory of those whom they 
have deemed worthy of honor, by the pen of the 
poet, the voice of the orator, and the hand of the 
sculptor. How strong and potent through every 
phase of our great struggle was the remembrance 
that we were endeavoring to preserve that govern- 
ment which, with infinite care, our fathers had 
constructed ! As to the lips of many a dying 
soldier — lips that were to know joy and grief no 
more — there came a smile as he proudly recalled 
that he too had trod, and with no unequal foot- 
steps, in the paths marked out by our great fore- 
fathers, so hereafter those to whom in a few short 
years we must surrender this fair land, as they ad- 
vance in the freshness of their youthful energy to 
the duties of citizens, shall gather inspiration from 
the example of these men who were our comrades 
and brethren. They shall hear of the fierce fights of 
the Peninsula, of Antietam, Gettysburg, and Nash- 
ville, of the March to the Sea and the Surrender of 
Appomattox, and their hearts shall glow with the 



SOLDIERS 1 MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 63 

desire to emulate the noble fidelity and courage 
of the soldiers of the War of the Rebellion. They 
shall read the sad and wretched story of the hor- 
rors and systematic tortures of the Southern prison- 
houses, which history will be compelled by truth 
to record, and shall be filled with a deeper detesta- 
tion of that system of slavery which made such 
cruelties possible, and a loftier respect for that 
liberty for which these brave men died. To-day 
we rear no monument to military glory ; we come 
not to adorn with the laurel wreath the brow of 
any great chieftain, but to honor those qualities 
which make men truly great, although their duties 
were performed in the humblest station. The les- 
son taught by these noble lives and heroic deaths 
we seek so to impress that it may sink deep into 
the hearts of our countrymen long after our own 
have ceased to beat. 

The duties which the citizens of every free gov- 
ernment owe to it are of necessity of a higher and 
more solemn character than the obligations which 
are due from the subjects of any other State. It 
is emphatically their own, made by their own will, 
to be sustained, if sustained at all, by their own 
power. When menaced by disorder from within 
or foes from without, it is for themselves to defend 
it. This duty cannot be avoided or transferred ; 
they who would be free and they who would pre- 
serve their freedom alike " themselves must strike 
the blow." 

We recognize fully that among the causes which 



64 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 

have degraded nations, war, by the evils, moral and 
social, which it brings in its train, by the debts 
with which it encumbers industry and burdens its 
rewards, has been among the worst. We know 
that at this stage of the world's progress and in 
this era of civilization every nation which enters 
upon a war as vast and tremendous as that which 
was forced upon us, must justify itself and its acts. 
Before the august tribunal of history, whose sum- 
mons cannot be disregarded, before the civilized 
world, we are ready to plead and answer. As a 
part of the people of the United States, a city from 
whose limits there went forth, largely recruited 
here and almost entirely from this county, seven 
splendid regiments, some of which may fairly be 
classed as among the most distinguished of the 
whole army, we assert by the solemn act of to- 
day, by this bronze and granite, that had not we, 
had not these men and their comrades done what 
they did, the fabric of free government bequeathed 
to us would have been destroyed, and the hopes of 
freemen throughout the world have been blasted. 
We assert that the cause for which our own brave 
men died — that of free government, that of 
human liberty — forever entitles them to honor, 
to tender and grateful recollection ; and that the 
bravery and fortitude they exhibited were the true 
fruits of the patriotism in which they had their 
origin. We assert, now that the battle is fought 
and the victory won, that what they did and what 
we did was demanded most solemnly by duty ; and 



SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 65 

that if we had failed in putting forth every effort 
to suppress the Rebellion, we should have been 
worthy to be branded as recreant to liberty. 

By no fault of ours, by the wisdom of our 
fathers, — and I use the words with the tenderest 
respect for them, for I realize all their difficulties, — 
there had been welded together, not in a compact, 
but by an organic law, two classes of States. That 
there should be such a union was a matter of 
political necessity; and no one can contemplate 
this wonderful form of government without the 
profoundest respect and reverence for its founders, 
successfully combining as they did the peace and 
good order of small States with the strength, power, 
and widely extended influence of a great govern- 
ment. That there was a flaw in their work, they 
knew ; and yet, looking at it as they saw it when 
it was done, — when they recognized that they were 
freed from the troubles, the jealousies, the weak- 
ness of the Confederation which had struggled 
through the Revolution, and which, after the ex- 
ternal cohesive pressure of war had been with- 
drawn, had tried to perform some of the duties of 
a government, — what wonder that thev trusted 
that in process of time the States would become 
essentially alike, and slavery, which they hesitated 
to acknowledge by name, would by some agency 
pass away. It was not so to be. Madly resolved 
to rule or ruin, determined to interrupt the natural 
progress of events and the victory for freedom 
which peace was so rapidly winning, the Southern 



66 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 

States determined to dismember the Union. Per- 
haps even in this we might have acquiesced, had 
we not seen clearly that two such governments as 
our own and the one they would have established 
could not exist together. We should have been 
side by side with a nation from the very necessi- 
ties of its existence aggressive, resolute, deter- 
mined, and compelled to seek out new fields into 
which to extend its power. There was an instinct 
which told the American people not only that if 
they permitted the Union to be once divided, it 
could never be reunited, but also that if broken 
into two such States, one or the other must have 
the mastery. Our war is never to be confounded 
with the struggles for power or for extended ter- 
ritory, or the fierce contests of dynasties, which 
constitute so large a portion of those which have 
filled the earth with bloodshed ; it was a great 
elemental struggle in which two opposite systems 
were placed in direct conflict. Difficult as it had 
been to deal with the question of slavery within 
the Union, it was impossible to deal with it in a 
government outside of the Union ; and it was to 
be settled then and there whether the continent 
should be all free or all slave. Like the clouds 
charged with opposite electricities which sweep 
over and meet in collision in our summer skies, 
these two systems came of necessity into collision ; 
but as after the electric storm the air is purer and 
fresher, so now that the fury of the tempest has 
passed, the face of all nature is brighter and fairer. 



SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 67 

Perhaps it may be true that if it had been revealed 
to us how vast the contest, how immense the suf- 
fering, how terrible the expenditure of life, we 
should have shrunk back aghast from that sea of 
fire and blood ; but the heart of no people ever 
beat more strongly and truly than did that of the 
American people, as it sent back its answer to the 
cannon-fire which announced that the flag of the 
Union no longer protected from insult those over 
whom it floated. The Union, it said, is no rope of 
sand such as the winds and waves may toss upon 
the shore, but a chain whose links, though bright 
as gold, are yet as strong as adamant. 

Wars have not always been unmixed evils. Out 
of the fierce conflicts of the English people in the 
days of our own Puritan fathers came the liberty 
which England now enjoys ; and it is by wars that 
France and Spain, blindly, often madly, striving, 
still force their way on towards the republic, which 
is their only hope for permanent peace. Who is 
there to say that, vast as the price was, our own con- 
flict was not worth all that it cost ? True it is that 
our treasure was poured out like water ; that noble 
and valuable lives, not to be estimated in any scale 
of material wealth, were sacrificed by thousands ; 
yet the consolidation of a government in which two 
discordant elements had so Ions; contended was 
worth even this mighty price. The American 
people, rejecting all the shallow artifices of com- 
promise, have placed their feet firmly and forever 
upon the great rocks of Liberty, Equality, and 



68 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 

Justice, and from them they cannot be moved. 
The personal feelings engendered between us and 
the rebellious portion of the Southern States will 
pass away as the physical signs of the conflict 
rapidly disappear ; but the work which these 
hands, now cold and still, have wrought, is to 
endure as long as freedom has an abiding-place 
on earth. 

Of the unfortunate victims whom tbe twin 
furies of Slavery and Rebellion led forth to 
battle, we, although standing here in honor of 
the brave who yielded their lives in the great 
and holy cause of Loyalty and Freedom, will 
speak no word of harshness. Misled, betrayed, 
erring, they were our countrymen still ; but it 
were childish weakness to speak of their cause 
other than as it was. Already the voices of true 
men who served in the Confederate army begin 
to speak out in recognition of the truth that their 
cause was opposed alike to the government of the 
country, the civilization of the age, and to human- 
ity itself. The victories of the sword are sharp 
and incisive, those of opinion slower, yet more en- 
during ; but the day will come when throughout 
the eleven States which were the seat of this 
gigantic Rebellion, it will be universally admitted 
that it was better for them as well as for us that 
it failed. 

For the cordial greeting that has been given to 
those who have been in the field, for the generous 
and noble tribute that has been paid to them by 



SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 69 

the orator of the occasion, which has been so 
warmly received, I return thanks on their behalf 
and my own most sincerely. To-day we that 
have been soldiers desire to do all honor to the 
noble spirit of loyalty that prevailed at home, 
which encouraged the heart and strengthened the 
hand of every man who went forth to the field. 
We know well how many there were whom age, 
infirmity, or duties more immediate and impera- 
tive even than those of filling the army, pre- 
vented from being of our number. All who in 
those hours of trial did their duty are entitled 
proudly to remember it now and hereafter. Nor 
ought we to forget the obligations we are un- 
der to the women of the country, for the cour- 
age they manifested from the beginning to the 
very close of the struggle. Even now, when 
the call for charity is made, — and it must of 
necessity be, at the close of war so terrible as 
this, that it is often made, — their ears are 
never deaf. Hard as is the lot, stern as is the 
duty of the soldier who swings on his knapsack 
for the w T eary fields of war, that of the mother 
who gives up her son, of the wife who gives up 
her husband, of the maiden who gives up her 
lover, is harder still ; for it is hers only to weep 
and watch and wait. For him, if there is the 
danger, there is the stern joy of the conflict ; for 
her, only the long weary hours of sadness and 
suspense. I read of the noble Roman and Gre- 
cian mothers, of the brave and tender women 



70 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 

whom English literature and English poetry have 
loved to remember ; but again and yet again in 
our own day was re-enacted here every beautiful 
story of feminine self-sacrifice by the women of 
our own land. Honor to all for their words of 
encouragement and cheer, with which they strove 
to fortify the hearts of those whom they loved, 
even when their own were nearly bursting. But 
for those who in lonely homes or by bereaved 
firesides wait still for the footsteps that are to 
come no more on earth, for the voices that are 
forever silent, let them believe that the tenderest 
sympathy and most affectionate regard of a grate- 
ful people now and always surround them. 

Of the men themselves, whose names are borne 
upon these tablets, how can I trust myself to 
speak on an occasion which seems to recall them, 
as I have known them through all the long and 
anxious years of the war, — sometimes sad and 
weary with the long marches under the stifling 
heat of the July sun, or in the wet and cold of 
December's snow ; sometimes cheerful and gay 
as they gathered in merry groups around the 
evening fires. Again their voices seem to ring 
out loud and high in the charging cheer of the 
fierce attack ; again to speak in the old, calm, 
resolute tones, as they sternly struggle with the 
sad hours of disaster and defeat. There are 
names written here that I cannot, dare not, 
trust myself to utter, lest I lose the self-control 
proper for the occasion, — for they are the names 



SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 71 

of men who have fought by my side in my own 
commands, who have shared my mess and my 
blanket, upon whom often my arm has leaned 
with a confidence that never was betrayed. To 
many hearts there comes the thought of those 
dearer and tenderer than any others can be ; yet 
it is better to recall them together, as they are 
grouped together by valor in their country's 
cause, and by their glorious doom. Embracing 
every condition of our social life, the richest 
and poorest, the best and the least educated, 
they were true representative men of the Amer- 
ican people, citizens before they were soldiers, 
holding the former as their highest title, and 
always remembering that they were soldiers only 
that they and those for whom they died might 
enjoy forever the proud title of citizens of a 
well-ordered, peaceful, free republic. By far the 
larger number were of the enlisted men ; and of 
those who were borne upon the roll as officers, 
many have carried the knapsack and the musket 
in the ranks of the army. The distinctions of 
position, inseparable from a service where each 
man must give up to his superior in rank his 
own. will and judgment, have long since passed 
away among the living, — how much more among 
the dead ! To-day we come to do honor to those 
qualities of courage, fidelity, patriotism, which 
ennoble him who exhibits them, no matter what 
his rank or station. That there were differences 
among these men is no doubt true ; for it would be 



i± 



2 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 



idle to pretend that all were equally actuated by 
the same lofty patriotism and the same exalted 
spirit. Yet if among them there is any one less 
worthy than the others, I use the words of the 
Athenian orator when I say that " I hold above 
him, as a shield, his value in his country's be- 
half." When all deductions are made, if any are 
to be made, the fact will stand that no army ever 
went to the field more solemnly resolved upon 
duty, or animated by a higher sense of its re- 
sponsibility, than our own. It was no fierce 
fire of ambition, no thirst for the pomp and 
glitter of military glory, no wild longing for 
adventure, that urged our soldiers on ; but with 
a deep sense of their obligation to their coun- 
try, with a full knowledge of all their dan- 
gers, yet with a determination to meet them 
all, they went forth. They were nobler men, 
they were braver soldiers, because, calmly re- 
flecting, they had followed the path to which 
duty beckoned, in the stern faith that they 
would follow it still, even though it led them 
to death. 

To-day there is no time to dwell at length on 
their deeds, — for to enumerate all the trials of 
those doubtful years is the province of the his- 
torian, and not of the casual speaker, — but 
steadily we pressed on until God had given us 
the victory. These men could not know when 
they fell but that their struggles would be use- 
less, for their dying eyes were permitted to look 



SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 73 

only upon the sad spectacle of States " discord- 
ant, belligerent, and drenched in fraternal blood;" 
yet now the land itself seems nobler and fairer 
for these that it bears in its bosom. As the 
power of association unites the memory of each 
to the spot where his mouldering dust is laid, 
so our mountains seem loftier, as they guard 
the resting-places where they lie, and our rivers 
to move to the sea with a broader and prouder 
sweep, because of the brave men whose life-blood 
has mingled with their streams. 



o 



They fell, devoted but undying ; 
The very gale their names seems sighing ; 
The waters murmur of their uame; 
The woods are peopled with their fame. 



Their spirits wrap the dusky mountain ; 
Their memory sparkles o'er the fountain: 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
Rolls mingling with their fame forever." 

Comrades ! The Monument we have to-day 
received, I do not permit myself to doubt we 
shall cherish always as a memorial worthy of 
every honor. To-day we have dedicated it by 
the strains of sad yet proud music, by the pen 
of the poet, by the voice of the accomplished 
orator who has addressed us, and by solemn in- 
vocation to Heaven, as our attestation of the 
truth and bravery of these men. We have com- 
mended them and their deeds forever to the 
gratitude of their fellow-countrymen. Yet our 



74 SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 

ceremony will be but formal and empty, if we do 
not endeavor to show in ourselves, now and al- 
ways, some evidence of the patriotism which they 
exhibited. The Rebel flag was furled, indeed, at 
Appomattox ; but our duties as citizens are not fin- 
ished, and never can be while life shall last. As 
we stood together in our ranks, in the fields that 
girdle this fair city, — ere we started on that 
journey from which so many were never to re- 
turn, — with bared heads and uplifted hands we 
solemnly swore to be true to the Republic, and to 
defend it against all its enemies. From that great 
oath, the dead alone are absolved, however bravely 
we may have kept it in the smoke and fire of the 
battle-field. To-day let us renew that solemn ob- 
ligation ; to the luxury that enervates a nation, 
let us oppose the dignity of simple, manly, heroic 
lives ; to the corruption that seems always to prey 
upon great and wealthy States, let us show our- 
selves always resolute and implacable foes ; and 
as at the dawning of the Rebellion, so now, let us 
pledge our faith to all our fellow-citizens, and our 
undying devotion to the Union, wherever the great 
flag, the symbol of Liberty and Law, waves on the 
land or on the sea. 

And now, dear fellow-comrades, wherever you 
have found your final resting-place, repose in 
peace and honor ! We who shared with you the 
long night-watches, the weary marches, the stormy 
conflicts, like you are soon to pass away ; but com- 
ing generations shall take up our eulogy, and you 



SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT WORCESTER. 75 

shall be known and honored long after the clods 
of the valley have pressed ns to our eternal rest. 
Though to a narrow vision your lives seem short, 
your deaths to have been premature, yet that life 
is full and complete which like yours has an- 
swered life's great end. It is not wealth or 
power that constitutes the true glory of a State, 
but noble, high-souled men ; and this imperial 
Union shall hold your fame forever as the bright- 
est jewel in her radiant crown. As hearts can- 
not be divided, as true souls must ever remain 
united, so are we one army still ; although the 
great river which rolls between the living ana" 
the dead yet leaves us on this hither side, 
although we see that your faces are bright with 
a light more resplendent than that of the sum- 
mer's sun, and that the armor you wear " never 
gleamed upon earthly anvil," still would we be 
one with you in fidelity to duty, in loyalty to 
liberty, in devotion to the country which is the 
mother of us all. 



ORATION 

AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF 
BUNKER HILL, JUNE 17, 1875. 



In pious and patriotic commemoration of the 
great deed which one hundred years ago was done 
on this immortal field ; in deep thankfulness for 
the blessings which have been showered upon us 
as a people with so lavish a hand ; in the earnest 
hope that the liberty, guarded and sustained by 
the sanctions of law, which the valor of our fathers 
won for us, and which we hold to-day in solemn 
trust, may be transmitted to endless generations, — 
we have gathered to-day in this countless throng. 
representing in its assemblage every portion of our 
common country. 

A welcome, cordial, generous, and heartfelt, to 
each and all ! 

Welcome to the sons of New England, and their 
descendants, no matter where their homes may be ! 
They stand upon the soil made sacred now and for- 
ever by the blood of their fathers. Among them 
we recognize with peculiar pleasure and satisfac- 
tion those allied by family ties to the great leaders 
of the day. — to Prescott, Putnam, Warren ; to 
Stark, Knowlton, Poineroy, and equally those in 



78 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

whose veins flows the kindred blood of any of 
the brave men who stood together in the battle- 
line. 

Insignificant as the conflict seems to us now in 
regard to the numbers engaged, unimportant as it 
was then so far as results purely military and stra- 
tegical were concerned, the valor and patriotism 
here exhibited, the time when and the opportunity 
on which they w r ere thus displayed, have justly 
caused it to be ranked among the decisive battles 
of the world. 

Welcome to the citizens of every State, whether 
they have come here from those States which rep- 
resent the thirteen colonies, or from the younger 
States of the Union ! We thank them all, whether 
they come from the great Middle States which bind 
us together, from the West, or from the South, for 
the pilgrimage they have made hither in generous 
appreciation of the great step that was taken here 
upon the jagged and thorny path on which we were 
compelled to walk in our journey towards indepen- 
dence. Fought although this battle was by the 
men of the colonies of New England, they did not 
stand for themselves alone, but that there might 
be founded a structure imperishable as any that 
man can rear in a free and united government. 
The corner-stone of the edifice they laid was for 
all the colonies that were, all the States that are, 
all the States that are yet to be. 

Welcome to the Vice-President of the United 
States, the Justices of its Supreme Court, and the 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 70 

General commanding its armies ! They represent 
to us the government which was the result of the 
Revolution. In 177-3, Massachusetts was the most 
populous but one or perhaps two of the colonies, 
and by the unity of her people the most powerful 
and warlike of any. She has seen, notwithstand- 
ing her own vast increase in population and wealth, 
although a great State has since been taken from 
what were then her borders, her relative position 
change ; but she has seen with admiration and not 
with envy, with pride and satisfaction and not 
with mean jealousy, the growth of States broader, 
richer, and fairer than she can hope to be. What- 
ever changes may have come, her spirit has not 
changed, her voice has not altered. Then singled 
out from the colonies to be first subdued and pun- 
ished, as she lifted her head in stern defence of her 
ancient liberty, in proud defiance of those who 
would oppress her, demanding her own great right 
of local self-government, she called upon her sister 
colonies for a union that should secure and main- 
tain the rights of all ; so to-day she demands for 
all others every right which she asks for herself, 
and she calls upon all for that cordial and gener- 
ous obedience which she is ready to render to the 
Constitution which has united them forever. 

It was to be expected as the controversy between 
Great Britain and her colonies moved on from the 
proposed passage of the Stamp Act in 1764, and as 
its inevitable tendency developed, that its weight 
should be thrown in the first instance upon New 



80 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

England and her chief town and colony. The 
colonies differed in some important respects in the 
manner in which they had been settled and in 
the character of their people. To some there was 
nothing distasteful in a monarchical government 
as such, if it had been wisely and liberally admin- 
istered ; but New England remembered always the 
race from which she sprung, and why her fathers 
had crossed the sea. Others had come from a love 
of adventure, from the hope of wealth, from a de- 
sire to test the fortunes of a new world ; but for 
none of these things had her founders left the 
pleasant fields and loved homes of their native 
land, and the unquenchable love of liberty which 
animated them lived still in the bosoms of their 
descendants. Nor was her stern religious faith 
averse to the assertion by force of what she deemed 
her liberties. In Parliament, the spirit that pre- 
vailed at the time of the accession of George III. 
was different from that ardent zeal for constitu- 
tional freedom which had resulted in the dethrone- 
ment of James II. ; but New England understood 
her rights, and was prompt to maintain them al- 
ways in the spirit of the English Commonwealth. 
" In what law-book, in what records or archives 
of State," said one to Selclen, " do you find the 
law for resisting tyranny?" and the great lawyer 
of that day answered, " It has always been the 
1 custom of England ;' and the ' custom of England ' 
is the law of the land." 

It was not merely the right to tax without ' 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 81 

representation ; it was the claim, necessarily in- 
volved in such a right, to govern in a diflierenl 
manner, and through officials appointed by the 
British Crown, that astonished the colonics, and 
united all at first in remonstrance and afterwards 
in determined resistance. Her own character and 
the circumstances of her situation had placed 
Massachusetts in the van of this conflict, and had 
caused her, when the policy of coercion was finally 
resolved on, to be dealt with by a system of legisla- 
tion unprecedented in the method usually adopted 
by Britain in governing her colonies. It was in- 
dustriously circulated in Parliament that she would 
not be sustained by the others in the resolute atti- 
tude which she had assumed ; and upon her were 
rained in rapid succession the statutes known by 
the popular names of the Boston Port Bill, the 
Regulating Act, the Enforcing Act, which were 
intended to reduce her chief town, the most impor- 
tant in North America, to beggary; which abro- 
gated the provisions of her charter, and took from 
the people the appointment of their judges, sher- 
iffs, and chief officers; which forbade the town- 
meetings, whose spirit had been too bold and 
resolute to be pleasant ; which denied to her citi- 
zens in many cases the trial by jury, and permitted 
them to be transported to England or to other colo- 
nics for trial, — a system which, if it could have 
been enforced, would have reduced her inhabitants 
to political servitude. Sustained by her own dar- 
ing spirit, and by the generous encouragement of 



82 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

her sister colonies, she had resisted ; and the ten 
months that had preceded Lexington and Concord 
had been practically those of war, although blows 
had not been struck, and blood had not been shed. 
In the speech of Mr. Burke, delivered March, 1775, 
upon conciliation with America, memorable not so 
much for its splendid eloquence (although it is 
among the masterpieces of the English language) 
as for its generous statesmanship, he describes 
Massachusetts, the utter failure of the attempt to 
reduce her either to submission or anarchy, and her 
preservation of order even while she rejected the 
authority of the Governor and judges appointed 
by the British Crown. He closes by saying, u How 
long it will continue in this state, or what may 
arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can the 
wisest of us conjecture ? " 

Obviously no such condition of things could 
endure ; and before his words could cross the 
Atlantic, the question that he asked had been 
answered by the appeal to arms. The hoof-beats 
of Paul Revere's horse along the Lexington road 
had announced, as the yeomanry of Middlesex, 
Essex, and Worcester sprang to arms to meet the 
movement of the British from Boston, on the 
evening of April 18, that the lull was over, and 
that the storm had come in all its majesty. 

The day that followed had changed the relation 
of the contending parties forever ; but the battle 
of Bunker Hill is also one of the definite steps 
which mark the progress of the American Revo- 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 83 

lution. It was not merely that it was an act of 
resistance by those who will not submit to be 
oppressed ; it was the result of a distinctly 
aggressive movement on the part of those who 
claimed the right to levy and maintain armies; 
nor can I better discharge the duty which has 
fallen on me, by the deeply regretted absence of 
the distinguished scholar and orator 1 who it was 
hoped would have addressed you, than by recall- 
ing its events. Even if to some extent I shall 
seem to trespass upon the domain of the historian 
or the annalist, the deeds of brave men are their 
true eulogy ; and from a calm contemplation of 
them we may draw an inspiration and encourage- 
ment greater than could be derived from labored 
argument or carefully studied reflection. 

Lexington and Concord had been immediatelv 
followed by the gathering of the militia of New 
England for the siege of Boston, where Gage, now 
reinforced by Clinton, was compelled to rest, shel- 
tered by the cannon of the ships of war, in com- 
mand of the garrison of the beleaguered town. 
The force by which he was surrounded was an 
irregular one ; nor had it any distinct^ recog- 
nized commander, — for while a precedence was 
accorded to General Ward, on account of his sen- 
iority, and because more than two thirds of those 
assembled were Massachusetts men, yet, inasmuch 
as no colony could claim authority over another, 

i The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. 



84 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

the army was an army of allies, the troops of 
each colony being commanded by its own officers, 
while all the general officers formed a council of 
war. 

The occupation of Bunker Hill was resolved on 
at the suggestion of the Committee of Safety of 
Massachusetts, made with a knowledge that Gen- 
eral Gage was about to take possession of the 
heights of Dorchester ; and on the evening of the 
16th of June the force destined for this formidable 
movement assembled upon the Common at Cam- 
bridge. It consisted of some seven or eight hun- 
dred men, drawn from the regiments of Prescott, 
Frye, and Bridge, and of some two hundred men 
from Connecticut, from the regiment of Putnam, 
under Captain Thomas Knowlton, the whole under 
the command of Colonel William Prescott. As 
they formed for their march, Langdon, the Presi- 
dent of Harvard College, came from his study, and 
implored the blessing of God upon their then 
unknown and dangerous expedition. 

So always may the voice of this great institu- 
tion, which, among their earliest acts and in 
their day of weakness, our fathers dedicated to 
the cause of sound learning, be uplifted in solemn 
invocation in every struggle, whether in the 
forum or the field, for progress, for liberty, and 
for the rights of man ! From her halls, then 
converted into barracks, had come forth the 
men who, within the thirty-five years that had 
preceded, had more largely than any others con- 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 85 

trolled and conducted the great debate between 
England and her colonies, which, beginning dis- 
tinctly in 1704 by the proposed passage of the 
Stamp Act, was now to be settled by the arbitra- 
ment of arms. In 1740 had graduated Samuel 
Adams, and in his thesis for the Master's degree 
had maintained the proposition which was the 
foundation of the Revolution, that it was lawful 
to resist the supreme magistrate if the common- 
wealth could not otherwise be preserved. He had 
been followed, among others hardly less distin- 
guished, by James Otis, by Cooper and Bowdoin, 
Hancock and John Adams, by Warren and Quincy. 
Differing in ages and occupations, in personal 
qualities and mental characteristics, this remark- 
able group had been drawn together by common 
enthusiasm. To their work they had brought 
every energy of mind and heart ; and they had so 
managed their share of the controversy, in which 
all the leading statesmen of Britain had partici- 
pated, as to have commanded the respect of their 
opponents, while they inspired and convinced their 
own countrymen. Many lived to see their hopes 
fulfilled ; yet not all. Already Quinc} T , the young- 
est of this illustrious circle, had passed away, ap- 
pealing with his dying words to his countrymen 
to be prepared to seal their faith and constancy 
to their liberties with their blood. Already the 
gloomy shadow of mental darkness had obscured 
forever the splendid powers of Otis ; and the hour 
of Warren was nearly come. 



86 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

It was nine o'clock in the evening as the 
detachments, with Prescott at their head, moved 
from Cambridge. On arriving at Charlestown, a 
consultation was held, in which it is believed that 
Putnam, and perhaps Pomeroy, joined ; and it was 
determined to fortify Breed's Hill, not then known 
by the distinctive name it has since borne. Con- 
nected with Bunker Hill by a high ridge, these 
two eminences might not improperly be considered 
as peaks of the same hill ; and for the purpose of 
annoyance to the British at Boston, Breed's Hill 
was better adapted. Together they traverse a 
large portion of the peninsula of Charlestown, 
which, connected with the mainland by a narrow 
neck, and broadening as it approaches Boston, is 
washed on the northern side by the Mystic, and on 
the eastern and southern by the Charles River. As 
the line of retreat to the Neck, which was the 
only approach, was long, Breed's Hill could not 
be safely held, however, without fortifying Bunker 
Hill also. 

At midnight work on the redoubt began ; and at 
dawn the intrenchments, as they were discovered 
by the British fleet in Charles River, which opened 
upon them at once, were about six feet high. Well 
sheltered within them, the men, under a terrific 
cannonade from the ships and floating batteries, 
aided by a battery on Copp's Hill opposite, con- 
tinued to labor at the works until about eleven 
o'clock, when they were substantially finished. At 
about this time General Putnam reached the field, 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 87 

and recommended that the intrenching tools be 
sent to Bunker Hill, where he directed the throw- 
ing up of a breastwork which, in the confusion of 
the day, was never completed. 

Oppressed by their severe labor, the terrific 
heat, and their want of water and provisions, 
some urged upon Prescott that he should send 
to General Ward that they might be relieved ; 
but this he resolutely refused, saying that the men 
who had raised the works were best able to defend 
them. At Cambridge, however, much anxiety 
prevailed. General Ward, who was of opinion 
that General Gage must attack at once, and would 
make his principal attack at Cambridge, was un- 
willing to weaken the main army until his inten- 
tions should be developed ; but yielding partially 
to the energetic remonstrances of the Committee of 
Safety, through Mr. Richard Devens, consented to 
order to Charlestown the regiments of Stark and 
Reed, which were under his control. 

The consultation at Boston, begun at the an- 
nouncement made by the cannonade from the 
British ships, was spirited and long. It was the 
opinion of Sir Henry Clinton that troops should 
be landed at the Neck, and the evidently small 
force upon the hill, then taken in reverse, would 
easily be captured. But this plan was rejected by 
General Gage, for tbe reason that the force thus 
landed might be placed between two forces of the 
enemy, in violation of the military axiom that 
troops should be compelled to deal only with an 



88 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

enemy in front. While the rule is sound, its appli- 
cation to this case might well be doubted, as, by 
concentrating the fire of the British ships and 
batteries, it could have been made impossible for 
any organized force to cross the Neck, had the 
British forces been landed near this point, and 
thus imprisoned the Americans in the peninsula. 

To attack the works in front, to carry them 
by main force, to show how little able the rabble 
that manned them was to compete with the troops 
of the King, and to administer a stern rebuke which 
should punish severely those actually in arms, and 
admonish those whose loyalty was wavering, was 
more in accordance with the spirit that prevailed 
in the British army. Its officers were smarting 
under the disgrace of the retreat from Lexington 
and Concord, and would not yet believe that they 
had before them foemen worthy of their steel. 

It was soon after twelve o'clock when the 
troops commenced their movements from the 
North Battery and Long Wharf of Boston, land- 
ing at about one o'clock without molestation at 
the extreme point of the peninsula, known as 
Moulton's Point. On arriving, Major-General 
Howe, by whom they were commanded, finding 
the work more formidable than he had antici- 
pated, determined to send for reinforcements. 
This delay was unwise ; for the interval, although 
it brought him additional troops, proved of far 
more advantage to the Americans. 

When the news of the actual landing arrived at 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 89 

Cambridge, a considerable body of Massachusetts 
troops was ordered towards Charlestown, while 
General Putnam ordered forward those of Con- 
necticut. Of all these, however, comparatively 
few reached the field before the action was decided. 
Many never reached Charlestown at all ; others 
delayed at Prospect Hill, appalled at the tremen- 
dous fire with which the British swept the Neck ; 
while others came no farther than Bunker Hill. 

It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon 
when, reinforcements having arrived, all was 
ready in the British line for the attack ; and it 
is time to consider the character of the defences 
erected, and their position, as well as the forces by 
which they were then manned. The redoubt, 
which enclosed the spot where the monument 
now stands, was upon the crest of Breed's Hill, 
— an eminence about seventy feet in height. 
It was about eight rods square, with its front 
towards the south, overlooking the town and 
Charles River. Its southeastern angle directly 
faced Copp's Hill, while its eastern side fronted 
extensive fields which lay between it and Moul- 
ton's Point ; Moulton's Hill, 1 then about thirty 
feet in height, but now levelled with the surface 
of the ground, was situated between it and Moul- 
ton's Point. The eastern side of the redoubt was 
prolonged by a breastwork detached by a sally- 
port, which extended for about one hundred yards 
towards a marsh ; while the northern side over- 

1 Called Morton's Hill in all the accounts of the battle. 



90 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

looked the Mystic River, from which it was distant 
about five hundred yards. 

For the possession of this work the conflict 
was now about to take place. It had, however, 
been strengthened upon the side towards the 
Mystic by a protection without which it would 
have been untenable ; and this addition had 
been made while General Howe was waiting 
for reinforcements, by the forethought of Pres- 
cott, the skilful conduct of Knowlton, and the 
fortunate arrival of Stark. Immediately upon 
the first landing, observing the intention on the 
part of the British general of moving along the 
Mystic, and thus attempting to outflank the Amer- 
icans, Prescott had directed Knowlton, with the 
Connecticut detachment and with two field-pieces, 
to oppose them. Captain Knowlton, with his men, 
who, it will be remembered, were of the original 
command of Prescott, moved about six hundred 
feet to the rear of the redoubt upon the side towards 
the Mystic, and took a position there near the 
base of Bunker Hill properly so called, finding a 
fence which extended towards the Mystic, the foun- 
dation of which was of stone, and upon it two 
rails. Rapidly making, with the materials he 
found, another fence a few feet distant, he filled 
the interval with grass from the fields which the 
mower of yesterday had passed over, but upon 
which the great reaper was to gather to-day a rich 
harvest. While thus engaged, Stark (a part of 
whose men were detained at Bunker Hill by Put- 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 91 

nam on his proposed works there) followed closely 
by Reed, arrived, and perceiving instantly the im- 
portance of this position for the defence of the 
intrenchments, — for the way, as he says, for the 
enemy was " so plain he could not miss it," — 
extended the line of Knowlton by rails and stones 
taken from adjoining fences until it readied the 
river, making on the extreme left on the beach a 
strong stone wall. As the rail-fence was so far to 
the rear of the redoubt, there was of course an in- 
terval, which some slight attempt had been made 
to close, and where also was posted the artillery of 
the Americans, which, however, insufficient of itself 
and feebly served, was of little importance during 
the action. 

In the mean time, few although the reinforce- 
ments were, there had now arrived some fresh 
men to inspire with confidence those who had 
toiled with Prescott through the weary night and 
exhausting day without food, drink, or rest. Just 
before the battle actually commenced, detachments 
from the Massachusetts regiments of Brewer, Nixon, 
Woodbridge, Little, and Major Moore reached the 
field. Most of these took their place at the breast- 
work on the left of the eastern front of the redoubt, 
and a similar breastwork more hastily made by 
using a cartway upon the right. 

Upon the extreme right were posted a few 
troops, extending towards the base of the hill, 
while two flanking parties were thrown out by 
Prescott to harass the enemy. 



92 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

A portion of the Massachusetts troops who 
arrive endeavor to fill the gap which exists be- 
tween the breastwork and the rail-fence, while 
yet a few take their stand at the rail-fence. No- 
tably among these latter is the veteran General 
Pomeroy, of Northampton, too old, as he thinks a 
few days later, when he is chosen a brigadier by 
the Continental Congress, to accept so responsible 
a trust, yet not so old that he cannot fight in 
the ranks, although the weight of seventy years is 
upon him. Later in the day, when his musket is 
shattered by a shot, he waves the broken stock 
in his strong right hand as he directs the men, — 
a leader's truncheon that tells its own story of the 
bravery by which it was won. All know the brave 
old man ; and as, declining any command, he takes 
his place as a volunteer, he is greeted with hearty 
cheers. To the redoubt has now come Warren, in 
the spirit of a true soldier, who, having advised 
against a plan which has been adopted, feels the 
more called upon to make every effort that it shall 
succeed. The enthusiasm with which he is re- 
ceived indicates at once the inspiration and encour- 
agement that the men all feel in that gallant 
presence ; but when Prescott offers him the com- 
mand, he having three days before been appointed 
a major-general by the Provincial Congress, he de- 
clines it, saying, " I come as a volunteer to serve 
under you, and shall be happy to learn from a sol- 
dier of your experience." 

The peninsula where the struggle was to take 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 03 

place was in full view across the calm waters of 
the harbor, and of the Charles and Mystic livers, 
whose banks were lined with people, who with 
mournful and anxious hearts awaited the issue, 
while each house-top in the town was covered with 
eager spectators. From Copp's Hill, General Gage, 
with Burgoyne and Clinton, surrounded by troops, 
ready themselves to move at an instant's warning, 
watched the onset of his forces. 

The champions are not unworthy of the arena in 
which they stand. To those who love the pomp 
and circumstance of war, the British troops pre- 
sent a splendid array. The brilliant light flashes 
back from the scarlet uniforms, the showy equip- 
ments, the glittering arms; and as they move, 
there is seen the effect of that discipline whose 
object is to put at the disposal of the one who 
commands the strength and courage of the thou- 
sands whom he leads. They are of the best and 
most tried troops of the British army ; and some 
of the regiments have won distinguished honor on 
the battle-fields of Europe, in the same wars 
in which the colonies had poured out their blood 
on this side of the Atlantic in hearty and gener- 
ous support of the British Crown. Their veteran 
officers are men who have seen service in Europe 
and America ; and their younger officers, like Lord 
Rawdon and Lord Harris, bear names afterwards 
distinguished in the chronicles of British warfare. 
The second in command is Brigadier-General Pigot, 
slight in person, but known as an officer of spirit 



94 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

and judgment ; and their leader, Major-General 
Howe, bears a name which has been loved and 
honored in America. The monument which Massa- 
chusetts reared in Westminster Abbey to his elder 
brother, Lord Howe, who fell while leading a col- 
umn of British and Americans at Ticonderoga in 
1758, still stands to inscribe his name among the 
heroes of England, whose fame is guarded and 
enshrined within that ancient pile. Above their 
lines waves the great British ensign, to which the 
colonies have always looked as the emblem of their 
country ; and with them is the " King's name," 
which even yet is a tower of strength in the land. 
As nearly as we can estimate, they number about 
four thousand men. General Gage's report indi- 
cates sufficiently that he does not intend to state 
the number engaged when he is compelled later 
to acknowledge the casualties of the day. 

Upon the other side a different scene presents 
itself. As the battle is about to open, at the 
redoubt and upon its flanks are the troops of 
Massachusetts ; at the rail-fence are the troops of 
Connecticut and those of New Hampshire, with a 
few men of Massachusetts. How many there were 
in all cannot be determined with accuracy. Regi- 
ments that are frequently spoken of as being pres- 
ent at the engagement were represented by but 
weak detachments. Towards the close of the bat- 
tle a few more arrive, but not more than enough 
to make the place good of the losses that have in 
the mean time occurred. No judgment can be 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 95 

formed more accurate than that of Washington, 
who was so soon after with the army, when many 
of the circumstances were investigated, and whose 
mature and carefully considered opinion was that 
at no time upon our side were more than fifteen 
hundred men actually engaged. 

As we look down the line, there are symptoms 
everywhere of determination ; for such has been 
the confusion, and so little has been the command 
which, in their movements, the officers have been 
able to exercise, that no man is there who does not 
mean to be there. A few free colored men are in 
the ranks, who do good service ; but it is a gath- 
ering almost exclusively of the yeomanry of New 
England, men of the English race and blood, who 
stand there that day because there has been an 
attempt to invade their rights as Englishmen, — 
rights guaranteed by their charters, and yet older 
than the Magna Charta itself. There are no uni- 
forms to please the eye ; but as the cowl does not 
make the monk, so the uniform does not make 
the soldier; and in their rustic garb they will 
show themselves worthy of the name before the 
day is done. No flag waves above their heads ; 
for they are this day without a country, and they 
fight that they may have one, although. they could 
not have dreamed that the emblem of its sover- 
eignty should float as it now does over millions of 
freemen from the Atlantic to the far Pacific. The 
equipments and arms are of all descriptions ; but 
those who carry them know their use, and all, 



96 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

more or less skilled as marksmen, mean in their 
stern economy of powder, which is their worst 
deficiency, that every shot shall tell. There is 
little discipline ; but it is not an unwarlike popu- 
lation. Among the men are scattered those who 
do not look for the first time on the battle-field ; 
and in every man is that sense of individual re- 
sponsibility and duty which to some extent takes 
the place of discipline, — that proud self-conscious- 
ness that animates those who know that their own 
right hands must work their own deliverance. 
Poorly officered in some respects, — for haste and 
bad management have put many important posts 
into inefficient hands, — there are also with them 
officers who from experience and ability might be 
well counted as leaders on any field. They are 
New England men, fully understanding those they 
command, and exercising an influence by force of 
their own characters, by their self-devotion and 
enthusiasm, which cause all around them to yield 
respectful and affectionate obedience. 

Roughly done, the works they have hastily 
made are yet formidable, the weakest part being 
the imperfectly closed gap between the breast- 
work and the rail-fence. 

At the rail-fence, and on the extreme left, is 
Stark, distinguished afterwards by the battle of 
Bennington ; he has shown the quick eye and 
ready hand of the practised soldier by the celerity 
with which he has extended this line to the Mystic 
River. Knowlton is there also, still with the Con- 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 97 

necticut men, as yet but little reinforced, whose 
resolute conduct of this day deserves the same 
eulogy which it received from Washington, when, 
a year later, he fell gloriously fighting on Har- 
lem Heights at the head of his regiment, that " it 
would have been an honor to any country." Gen- 
eral Putnam, an officer of tried courage and of 
energetic character, has come to share in the 
danger of the assault, now that it is evidently 
approaching, and is everywhere along this portion 
of the line, inspiring, encouraging, and sustaining 
the men. All these, like Pomeroy, are veteran 
soldiers, who have served in the wars with France 
and her savage allies ; and it is a sundering of old 
ties to see the British flag upon the other side. 

At the redoubt, sustained by Warren, stands the 
commander of the expedition which has fortified 
Breed's Hill. He has himself served in the pro- 
vincial forces of Massachusetts, under the British 
flag, and that so bravely that he has been offered 
a commission in the regular army, but he has pre- 
ferred the life of a farmer and magistrate in Mid- 
dlesex. His large and extensive influence he has 
given to the patriotic cause, and he has been recog- 
nized from the first as one of those men qualified 
to command. Powerful in person, with an easy 
humor which has cheered and inspired with con- 
fidence all who are around him, he waits the issue 
with a calmness and courage that will not fail him 
in the most desperate moment. The hour that 
he has expected has come ; and the gage of battle, 



98 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

so boldly thrown down by the erection of the 
redoubt, has been lifted. 

As the British army moved to the attack, it was 
in two wings, — the first arranged directly to assail 
the redoubt, and led by Pigot, while the other, 
commanded by General Howe in person, was di- 
vided into two distinct columns, one of which, 
composed of light infantry, was close to the bank 
of the river, and was intended to turn the extreme 
left of our line, and with the column in front of 
the rail-fence to drive the Americans from their 
position, and cut off the retreat of those in the 
redoubt. 

In his account of the battle, General Burgoyne 
observes, " Howe's disposition was exceedingly 
soldier-like ; in my opinion it was perfect." But 
the arrangements for the battle do not, in a 
military point of view, deserve such high com- 
mendation. It was clearly an error on the part 
of General Howe to divide his forces, and make 
two points of attack instead of one, and an equal 
error to move up and deploy his columns to fire, in 
wmich his troops were at obvious disadvantage 
from their want of protection, instead of making 
an assault without firing. He had failed also 
to recognize the weak point in the line between 
the breastwork and the rail-fence, easier to carry 
than any other point, and, if carried, more certain 
to involve the whole American force. He had 
sluggishly permitted the erection of the formi- 
dable fieldwork of the rail-fence, the whole of 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 99 

which had been constructed without any interfer- 
ence subsequent to his arrival on the peninsula ; 
nor, when it was constructed, does it seem to have 
occurred to him that by a floating battery or gun- 
boat stationed in the Mystic River, it could have 
been enfiladed, and the force there dislodged at 
once. 

As the British are seen to advance, the orders 
are renewed along the whole American line in a 
hundred different forms not to fire until the 
enemy are within ten or twelve rods, and then 
to wait for the word, to use their skill as marks- 
men, and to make every shot tell. For although 
those at the intrenchments and rail-fence act 
without immediate concert, the scarcity of pow- 
der, and the fact that they are without bayonets 
and can rely only upon their bullets, is known 
to all. It had been intended to cover the move- 
ment of the British by a discharge of artillery ; 
but the balls were, by some mistake of the 
ordnance officer, found too large for the guns, 
and afterwards, when loaded with grape, it was 
found impossible to draw them through the miry 
ground, so that they afforded, in the first assault, 
no substantial assistance. 

The forces of Pigot moved slowly forward, 
impeded by the heavy knapsacks they were en- 
cumbered with, and by the fences which divided 
the fields, and continued to fire as they thus ad- 
vanced. As they got within gun-shot, although 
their fire had done but little damage, our men could 



100 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

not entirely restrain their impatience ; but as some 
fired, Prescott, sternly rebuking the disorder, ap- 
pealed to their confidence in him, and some of his 
officers, springing upon the parapet, kicked up the 
guns that rested upon it, so that the men might be 
sure to wait. This efficient remonstrance had its 
effect ; and the enemy met within ten or twelve 
rods of the eastern front of the breastworks when 
the voice of Prescott uttered the words for which 
every ear was listening, and the stream of fire, 
which, by its terrible carnage, checked at once the 
advance, broke from his line. The attacking lines 
were old troops, and well led ; our fire was at once 
sternly returned, but they did not rush on, and in 
a few moments Pigot ordered his men, wavering 
and staggering under a fire which was murderous, 
while their own did little execution, to fall back. 

In the mean time General Howe, after un- 
successfully endeavoring with a column of light 
infantry to turn the extreme left of our line on 
the Mystic, advanced with the grenadiers directly 
in front of the rail-fence ; and, somewhat an- 
noyed by the artillery between the breastwork 
and the rail-fence, which here, directed by Put- 
nam, did its best service, Howe, as he approached 
within eighty or one hundred yards, deployed 
his forces into line. As at the redoubt, in eager- 
ness, some of our men fired, when the officers 
threatened to cut down the first man who dis- 
obeyed ; and thus rebuked, they restrained them- 
selves until the prescribed distance was reached, 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 101 

when their fire was delivered with such telling 
effect that, broken and disarranged, the attacking 
force, alike that directly in front and that upon 
the banks of the river, recoiled before it, while 
many of the British officers felt the deadly result 
of the superiority which the Americans possessed 
as marksmen. 

Some minutes, perhaps fifteen, now intervene 
before the second assault, which are moments of 
enthusiastic joy in the American lines. All see 
that they are led by men capable of directing 
them, that they have rudely hurled back the first 
onset, and that they are not contending against 
those who are invincible. As they have seen 
their enemy turn, some of them at the rail-fence 
in their eagerness have sprung over it to pursue, 
but have been restrained by the wisdom of their 
officers. At the redoubt, Prescott, certain that 
the enemy will soon re-form and again attack, 
while he commends the men for their courage 
and congratulates them on their success, urges 
them to wait again for his order before they fire. 
Putnam hastens from the lines, his object being to 
forward reinforcements, and to arrange, if possi- 
ble, a new line of defence at Bunker Hill, prop- 
erly so called, where all was in confusion, the 
men who had reached there being for the most 
part entirely disorganized. 

The horror of the bloody field is now height- 
ened by the burning of the prosperous town of 
Charlestown. This had been threatened as early 



102 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

as April 21 by General Gage, if the American 
forces occupied the town ; and the patriotic in- 
habitants had informed General Ward that they 
desired him to conduct his military operations 
without regard to their safety. Complaining of 
the annoyance which the sharpshooters posted 
along the edges of the town gave to his troops on 
the extreme left, General Howe has requested that 
it be fired, which was done by the cannon from 
Copp's Hill. It may be also, as w r as afterwards 
said, that Howe was under the impression that his 
assaulting: columns would be covered bv the smoke. 
The smoke drifts, however, in the other direction : 
and the provincials behold without dismay a deed 
which indicates the ruthless mode in which the war 
is to be prosecuted. As the enemy advance to the 
second assault, their fire is more effective. At 
the redoubt. Colonels Buckminster, Brewer, and 
Nixon are wounded ; Major Moore mortally. No 
general result is produced ; and again, as they 
reach the distance prescribed, the fire of the 
Americans, directed simultaneously along the 
whole length of the line, alike of the redoubt 
and breastwork as well as the rail-fence, is even 
more destructive than before. Standing the first 
shock, the enemy continue to advance and fire 
still ; but against so rapid and effective a wave as 
they now receive, it is impossible to hold their 
ground, and although their officers, themselves the 
worst sufferers, are seen frantically summoning 
them to their duty, all is in vain, — they are swept 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 103 

back in complete confusion. General Howe, 
opposite the rail-fence, is in the fiercest and 
thickest ; left almost alone, as his officers are 
struck down around him, he. is borne along by 
the current of the retreat rather than directs it. 

This time the repulse was terrific. " In front 
of our works," says Prescott, "the ground was 
covered with the killed and wounded, many of 
them within a few yards," while before the rail- 
fence " the dead," in the homely phrase of Stark, 
*• lay thick as sheep in a fold." Disorder reigned 
in the British ranks ; to stay the rout was for the 
moment impossible, as many of the companies had 
entirely lost their officers, and for a short time 
it seemed that they could not rally again. Had 
there been a reserve of fresh troops now to 
advance (which there might have been, had it 
been possible to organize the scattered detachments 
which had already reached Bunker Hill), or even 
proper support and reinforcement, the conflict 
would have ended by a victory so complete that 
perhaps it would have been accepted as putting an 
end to the British power in America. 

Before the third assault some reinforcements 
reached the rail-fence, especially three Connecticut 
companies under Major Durkee, and a portion of 
Gardner's regiment from Middlesex, the colonel of 
which was killed during the engagement. A part 
of this regiment was detained by Putnam on his 
proposed work at Bunker Hill. The company of 
Josiah Harris, of Charlestown, took its post at the 



104 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

extreme left of our line at the rail-fence, and won 
for its native town the honor, when the retreat 
commenced, of being the last to leave the field. 

To the redoubt and breastwork no reinforce- 
ments came ; and although the determined and 
remarkable man who conducted its defence may 
well have been disappointed at this failure, no 
word of discouragement escaped his lips. He 
knew well the duty which as an officer he owed 
his men, and at another time might have felt that 
he ought to retreat from a position, the chance of 
holding which was so slight ; yet there was still a 
chance, and he comprehended fully that on that 
day it was not a question of strategy or manoeu- 
vre, but of the determination and courage of the 
American people in the assertion of their freedom, 
which was there bloodily debated. Calm and 
resolute, cheerful still in outward demeanor, he 
moved around his lines, assuring his men, " If we 
drive them back again, they cannot rally ; " and 
inspired by their confidence in him, they answer 
enthusiastically, " We are ready." 

No supplies of powder have been received, and 
there are not in his whole command fifty 
bayonets, so that if the fire shall slacken, and the 
enemy force their way through it, resistance is 
impossible. No man has over three rounds of 
ammunition, and many only two; and when a 
few artillery cartridges are discovered, the powder 
in them is distributed with the injunction that 
not a kernel should be wasted. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 105 

Discipline, which at such moments will always 
tell, in perhaps half an hour has clone its work 
among, the British troops ; and no longer self- 
confident, but realizing the terrible work before 
them, the men are throwing oft' knapsacks for a final 
and desperate assault. Some have remonstrated ; 
but Sir William, less attractive than his brother, 
General Lord Howe, less able than his brother, 
Admiral Lord Howe, who now bears the family 
title, is a stern soldier, and in personal courage 
and determination in no way unworthy of the 
martial race to which he belongs. He feels that 
his own reputation and that of the soldiers he 
commands is ruined forever if they sustain defeat 
at the hands of a band of half-armed rustics. 
Victory itself will now be attended with mortifi- 
cation enough, after such severe repulses and such 
terrible losses. 

From the other side of the river General Clinton 
has seen the discomfiture, and, bringing some 
reinforcements, comes to aid in rallying the men. 
Howe has seen, too, what Clinton has also ob- 
served, the error of the former disposition of his 
force, and that the weak point of the American 
line is between the breastwork and the rail-fence. 
Towards this and against the redoubt and breast- 
work he now arranges his next attack. Cannon 
are brought to bear so as to rake the inside of the 
breastwork ; and making a demonstration only 
against the rail-fence that may check any move- 
ment upon the flank of his troops, he divides them 
into three columns. 



106 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

The two at the left are commanded respectively 
by Clinton and Pigot, while the right he leads in 
person. They are to assault together, — Clinton 
upon the left, at the southeastern angle, and 
Pio-ot upon the eastern front of the redoubt, while 
Howe's own force is to carry the breastwork, and 
striking between it and the rail-fence, bar the way 
of retreat. Against this formidable array no other 
preparation can be made by Prescott than to 
place at the angles of his redoubt the few bayo- 
nets at his disposal, and to direct that no man 
shall fire until the enemy are within twenty 
yards. 

The fire of the British artillery, now rendered 
effective, sweeps the inside of the breastwork, and, 
no longer tenable, its defenders crowd within the 
redoubt. Again the voice of Prescott is heard, as 
the attacking columns approach and are now only 
twenty yards distant, giving the order to fire. So 
telling and deadly is the discharge that the front 
ranks are almost prostrated by it ; but as the fire 
slackens, the British columns, which have wavered 
for an instant, move steadily on without returning 
it. Almost simultaneously upon the three points 
which are exposed to the assault the enemy reach 
the little earthwork which so much brave blood 
has been spent to hold and to gain ; and while 
they are now so near that its sides already cover 
them, its commander, determined to maintain it to 
the last extremity, orders those of his men who 
have no bayonets to retire to the rear and fire 
upon the enemy as they mount the parapet. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 107 

Those who first ascend are shot down as they 
scale the works, among them Pitcairn, whose 
rashness (even if we give him the benefit of the 
denial he always made of having ordered his 
soldiers to fire at Lexington) still renders him 
responsible for the first shedding of blood in the 
strife. In a few moments, however, the redoubt 
is half filled by the storming columns; and 
although a fierce conflict ensues, it is too unequal 
for hope, and shows only the courage which 
animates the men, who, without bayonets, use the 
butts of their muskets in the fierce effort to stay 
the now successful assault. As the enemy are 
closing about the redoubt, if the force is to be 
extricated from capture, the word to retreat must 
be given ; and reluctantly the brave lips which 
have hitherto spoken only the words of cheer and 
encouragement utter it at last. Already some are 
so involved that they hew their way through the 
enemy to join Prescott, and he himself is again 
and again struck at by the ba} 7 onet, of which his 
clothes give full proof afterwards, but defends him- 
self with his sword, — the use of which he under- 
stands. As our forces leave the redoubt by the 
entrance on the northern side, they come between 
the two columns which have turned the breast- 
work, and the southeastern angle of the redoubt. 
These are, however, too much exhausted to use 
the bayonet effectually, and all are so mingled 
together that for a few moments the British 
cannot fire ; but as our men extricate themselves, 



108 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

the British re-form, and deliver a heavy fire upon 
them as they retreat. 

In the mean time the attack has been renewed 
upon the rail-fence, but its defenders know well 
that if they would save their countrymen at the 
redoubt, they must hold it resolutely for a few 
moments longer, and they defend it nobly, resist- 
ing every attempt to turn the flank. They see 
soon that Prescott has left the hill, that the 
intrenchments are in the hands of the enemy at 
last ; and, their own work gallantly done, they 
retreat in better order than could have been ex- 
pected of troops who have so little organization, and 
who have looked for the first time on a battle-field. 
Upon the crest of Bunker Hill (properly so called) 
General Putnam, with the confused forces already 
there, gallantly struggles to organize a line and 
make a new stand, but without success. Our 
forces recross the neck and occupy Ploughed Hill, 
now Mount Benedict, at its head ; but there is no 
disposition on the part of the British to pursue, 
for the terrible slaughter too well attests the 
price at which the nominal victory has been 
obtained. 

The loss of the British, according to General 
Gage's account, was in killed and wounded 1,054 ; 
and it was generally believed that this was under- 
stated by him. There was inducement enough to 
do this ; for so disastrous was his despatch felt to 
be that the government hesitated to give it to the 
public, until forced to do so by the taunts of those 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 109 

who had opposed the war, and the methods by 
which it had been provoked. 

Sir William Howe seemed to have borne that 
day a charmed life ; for while ten officers of his 
staff were among the killed and wounded, he had 
escaped substantially uninjured. His white silk 
stockings, draggled with the crimson stain of the 
grass, wet with the blood of his men, attested that 
he had kept the promise made to them on the 
beach, that he should ask no man to go farther 
than he was prepared to lead. 

On the iVmerican side, the loss, as reported by 
the Committee of Safety, was in killed and 
wounded 449, by far the larger part of these 
casualties occurring in the capture of the redoubt, 
and after the retreat had commenced. Prescott, 
who, in the hours that had passed since he 
left Cambridge, had done for the independence 
of his country work that the greatest might 
well be satisfied with doing in a lifetime, was 
unhurt ; but Warren had fallen, than whom no 
man in America could have been more deeply 
deplored. 

Massachusetts in her Congress, and the citizens 
of all the colonies, united in doing; honor to his 
heroic self-sacrifice and pure, noble fame ; but no 
eulogy was more graceful than that of Mrs. John 
Adams, herself one of the most interesting figures 
of the Revolution, or more touching than that 
of the warm-hearted Pomeroy, who lamented the 
caprice of that fortune which had spared him in 



110 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

the day of battle, — an old war-worn soldier whose 
work was nearly done, — and taken Warren in the 
brightness of his youth, and with his vast capacity 
to serve his country. Yet for him, who shall say 
it was not well ? There are many things in 
life dearer than life itself : honor in its true and 
noble sense, patriotism, duty, all are dearer ; to all 
these he had been faithful. His position is for- 
ever among the heroes and martyrs of liberty ; 
his reward forever in the affection of a grateful 
people. As the dead always bear to us the image 
which they last bore when on earth, and as by 
the subtile power of the imagination we summon 
before us the brave men who stood here for their 
country, that noble presence, majestic in its manly 
beauty, seems to rise again, although a hundred 
3'ears are gone, with all the fire of his burning 
eloquence, with all the ardor of his patriotic en- 
thusiasm, with all the loftiness of his generous 
self-devotion. So shall it seem to rise, although 
centuries more shall pass, to inspire his country- 
men in every hour of doubt and trial with a valor 
and patriotism kindred to his own. 

The story I have told, fellow-citizens, has been 
often related before you far more vividly ; nor has 
it been in my power to add anything to the facts 
which patient and loving investigation has long 
since brought to light. Tested by the simple rule 
that whoever holds or gains the ground fought for 
wins the victory, the battle was, of course, a de- 
feat for the provincial forces ; but it was a defeat 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. Ill 

that carried and deserved to carry with it all the 
moral consequences of a victory. As General Bur- 
goyne gazed from Copp's Hill on the scene which 
he so graphically describes in a letter to Lord Stan- 
ley, he was saddened, he says, by " the reflection 
that perhaps a defeat would be a final loss to the 
British Empire in America ; " but although the 
battle was in his eyes a victory, it was one which 
equally marked a loss to that Empire. 

The lesson drawn from it was the same both in 
Europe and America. "England," wrote Franklin, 
"has lost her colonies forever;" and Washington, 
as he listened with intense interest to the narrative, 
and heard that the troops he was coming to com- 
mand had not only withstood the fire of the regulars, 
but had again and again repulsed them, renewed 
his expressions of confidence in final success. 

In England the news was received with morti- 
fication and astonishment ; no loss so serious in 
proportion to the number engaged had ever been 
known ; and in the excited debates of the Parlia- 
ment it was afterwards alleged to have been caused 
by the misbehavior of the troops themselves. 
The charge was certainly unjust ; for whatever 
may be thought of his own management, the 
troops he directed deserved the praise that General 
Gage gave them when he said, " British valor had 
never been more conspicuous than in this action." 
From his eyes the scales seemed to have fallen at 
last; and, closely beleaguered still, even after the 
victory he claimed to have won, he acknowledged 



112 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

that the people of New England were not " the 
despicable rabble they had sometimes been re- 
presented," and recognized that an offensive cam- 
paign here was not possible. 

The shrewd Count Vergennes, who, in the hour 
of the humiliation of France by the loss of her 
colonial possessions, had predicted that she would 
be avenged by those whose hands had largely 
wrought it, and that as the colonies no longer 
needed the protection of Great Britain, they would 
end by shaking off all dependence upon her, was 
now the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and 
keenly remarked that " if it won two more such 
victories as it had won at Bunker Hill, there would 
be no British army in America." 

The battle of Bunker Hill consolidated the 
Revolution. Had the result been different ; had it 
been shown that the hasty, ill-disciplined levies of 
New England could not stand before the troops of 
the King (or the ministerial troops, as our official 
documents called them) ; had the easy victory over 
them, which had been foolishly promised, been 
weakly conceded, — the cause of independence 
might have been indefinitely postponed. Nay, it 
is not impossible that armed resistance might for 
the time have ended, and that other colonies not 
so deeply involved in the contest might have ex- 
tricated themselves, each making such terms as 
it pleased or as it could. But the coolness and 
splendid valor with which the best troops then 
known had been met, the repulses which they had 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 113 

again and again encountered, the bloody and fear- 
ful cost at which they had finally carried the 
coveted point which their opponents yielded 
only when ammunition utterly failed, had shown 
that the yeomanry of New England were the true 
descendants of that race who, on the battle-fields 
of England, had stood against and triumphed over 
King Charles and his cavaliers. iW New England 
alone," said John Adams, " can maintain this war 
for years." He was right; the divisions that ex- 
isted elsewhere were practically unknown here ; no 
matter what colonies hesitated or doubted, the path 
of New England -was straightforward, and her goal 
was independence. While her colonies deferred to 
the Continental Congress the form of general gov- 
ernment which should be adopted, each had taken 
into its own hands all the powers that rightfully 
belong; to sovereign States, and exercised them 
through its provincial Congress and its commit- 
tees. Heartily desiring and eagerly looking for- 
ward to a union of the colonies, she had settled 
that in her local affairs she was competent to 
govern herself : this she had maintained that day 
in arms, and her period of vassalage was over. 

Willingly would I pursue the theme further, but 
the limits which custom prescribes for an address 
of this nature are too narrow to permit this. 
You know well the years of doubt, anxiety, and 
struggle that succeeded ; but, before we part, some- 
thing should be said of those that have passed 
since their triumphant close. 

8 



114 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

I have forborne to speak of the causes which led 
to the American Revolution. They have recently 
been so carefully and ably analyzed by the dis- 
tinguished orators who aided in the celebrations at 
Concord and Lexington that I have preferred to 
devote a few moments to a consideration of some 
of its effects, for it is by its effects that the pro- 
priety and wisdom of such a movement in human 
affairs must always be eventually tested. 

That the formation and adoption of the Con- 
stitution of the United States has been to us, since 
our independence was finally achieved, the great 
event of the century, must be universally conceded. 
It was the great good fortune and the crowning 
triumph of the statesmen who guided us through 
the Revolution, that they lived long enough to em- 
body its results in a permanent and durable form ; 
for it is proverbially harder to secure the fruits of a 
victory than to win the victory itself. Many a day 
of triumph upon the field has been but a day of 
carnage and of empty glory, barren in all that was 
valuable; and the victories that have been won 
upon the political field are no exceptions to the 
rule, of which history teems with illustrations. 

Our ancient ally, whose services during the last 
years of our war were of so much value to our 
exhausted treasury and armies, and whose gift of 
the generous and chivalric Lafayette at its opening 
was almost equally precious, passed a few years 
later through her own desperate struggle ; yet 
although that fierce tide swept in a sea of fire 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 115 

and blood over all the ancient institutions of the 
monarchy, how impossible it has proved to this day 
for France to supply the place of the government 
which it so sternly overthrew with one thoroughly 
permanent, giving peace and security ! Republic, 
Directory, Consulate, Empire, Kingdom, have each 
had their turn ; dynasty after dynasty, faction 
after faction, have asserted their sway over her. 

For a government under the constitutions of the 
several States, and under that of the United States, 
this people was prepared alike by its previous 
history and by that which followed its separation 
from Britain. It w r as the legitimate outgrowth of 
experience, and not a government framed, like 
those of the Abbe Sieyes at the end of their Revo- 
lution, for the French, by the aid of philosophic 
speculation, and on the basis of that which should 
be, and not of that which was. While the colonies, 
by means of their representative and legislative 
systems, had been accustomed to deal with their 
local affairs, and impose their local taxation, and 
had successfully resisted the attempt to interfere 
with these rights, yet, from the relation they had 
also been accustomed to sustain towards Great Brit- 
ain, it was not to them a novel idea that two gov- 
ernments, each complete and supreme within its 
sphere, might co-exist, — the one controlling the lo- 
cal affairs of each individual State, while the other 
exercised its powers over all the States in their in- 
tercourse with each other and with foreign nations. 

Painfully conscious of their weakness, the desire 



116 THE RATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

for a union of all had gone hand in hand with 
the desire of each to preserve its own separate 
organization. The first Continental Congress had 
not exercised political authority ; it had assembled 
only on behalf of the United Colonies to petition 
and remonstrate against the various arbitrary acts 
of the British government. Those which succeeded, 
however, with patriotic courage had boldly seized 
the highest powers ; yet as they could exercise 
such powers only so far as each State gave its 
assent and sustained them, the necessary result 
followed that their decrees were often feebly exe- 
cuted, and sometimes utterly disregarded. Later 
in the war the Confederation had been established, 
by which it had been sought to fix more definitely 
the relation of the States by giving more determi- 
nate authority to the Congress, and thereby to 
rescue the country from the financial ruin which 
had overtaken it. 

But the powers of the Congress of the Confed- 
eration, like those of the Continental Congress, 
were such as were consistent only with a league of 
sovereign and independent States, and were in 
their exercise less efficacious, because they had 
been carefully defined and limited. The Confed- 
eration did not constitute a government ; it did 
not assume to act upon the people, but upon the 
several States ; and upon them no means existed 
of enforcing its requisitions and decrees, or of com- 
pelling them to the performance of the treaties it 
might make or the obligations it might incur. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 117 

Among allied powers, from the nature of the case, 
there is no mode of enforcing the agreement of 
alliance except by war. 

The great work of achieving independence had, 
however, been completed by the Confederation in 
spite of all its weakness and inherent defects. 
These were, however, more clearly seen when the 
sense of an immediate and common danger, and 
the cohesive pressure of war, were withdrawn. 
A mere aggregation of States could not take its 
place among the peoples of the world. A national 
sovereignty was needed, capable of establishing a 
financial system of its own, of raising money for 
its own support by taxation, of establishing regu- 
lations of trade, of forming treaties with sufficient 
power to execute them, of insuring order in every 
State, of bringing each State into proper relations 
with the others, and able, if need be, to declare 
war or maintain peace, — a sovereignty which 
should act directly on the people themselves in 
the exercise of all its rightful powers, and not 
through the intervention of the States. 

The years of unexampled depression which 
followed peace with Britain were not attributable 
only to the exhaustion of war : the impossibility of 
establishing a financial or a commercial system, 
the sense of insecurity that prevailed, paralyzed 
industry and enterprise. Already jarrings and con- 
tests between the several States presaged the 
danger which had destroyed the republics of 
Greece and those of Italy during the Middle Ages ; 



118 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

already civil discord, which, although suppressed, 
had thrown the State temporarily into confusion, 
had made its appearance in Massachusetts ; already 
doubts began to be expressed, even by some who 
had been ardent in the patriotic cause, whether 
it had been wise to separate from a government 
which, even if monarchical, was strong and able to 
defend and protect its subjects ; and it had come 
to be realized that there must be somewhere a 
controlling power competent to maintain peace 
between the States, and to guarantee to each the 
security of its own government. 

The Convention which met at Philadelphia in 
1787 gave these States a government, and made 
them a nation ; and while I know to what is im- 
personal there is wanting much of the ardor that 
personal loyalty inspires, yet so far as there may 
be warmth in the devotion we cherish for an 
institution, it should awaken at the mention of the 
Constitution of the United States. The noble 
preamble declares by whom it is made, and defines 
its purposes : " We, the people of the United 
States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
vide for the common defence, promote the gen- 
eral welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty 
to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and 
establish this Constitution for the United States 
of America." In the largest measure it has ful- 
filled these objects ; and the judgment and far- 
seeing wisdom with which its founders met the 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 119 

difficulties before them more and more challenges 
our admiration as the years advance and the 
Republic extends. 

Formed by men who differed widely in their 
views, — some who clung resolutely still to the 
idea that it was dangerous to the liberties of the 
States to constitute an efficient central power, and 
others who, like Hamilton, preferred a consolidated 
government whose model should be the British 
Constitution, — it might easily have been that a 
government so framed should have been a patch- 
work of incongruities, whose discordant and 
irreconcilable provisions would have revealed al- 
ternately the influence of either opinion. Yet, 
differing although they did, they were statesmen 
still ; find, educated in the rough school of adversity 
and trial, they realized that a government must be 
constructed capable alike of daily efficient practical 
operation, and of adapting itself to the constantly 
varying exigencies in which sovereign States must 
act. How doubtful they were of their success, how 
nobly they succeeded in the government they made, 
to-day we know. 

We have seen its vast capacity for expansion as 
it has received State after State under the shield 
on which are emblazoned the arms of the Union, 
as it has arisen in what was on the day of its 
formation the untrodden wilderness, and advanced 
to the blessings of liberty and civilization ; we 
have recognized the flexibility it possesses in leav- 
ing to States materially differing in local charac- 



120 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

teristics and interests the control and management 
of their immediate affairs ; and we have known 
its capacity to vindicate itself in the wildest storm 
of civil commotion. 

Let us guard this Union well ; for as upon it all 
that is glorious in the past is resting, so upon it all 
our hopes in the future are founded. Let us de- 
mand of those who are to administer its great 
powers purity, disinterestedness, devotion to well- 
settled, carefully considered -principles and con- 
victions. Let us cherish the homely but manly 
virtues of the men who for it met the storm of war 
in behalf of a government and a country ; let us 
conserve their simple faith in what was just and 
right, a faith that found its root in their unswerv- 
ing belief in something higher than mere human 
guidance. Let us encourage that universal edu- 
cation, that diffusion of knowledge, which every- 
where oppose themselves as barriers, steadily and 
firmly, alike to plunder and fraud, to disorder and 
turbulence. Above all, let us strive to maintain 
and renew the fraternal feeling which should exist 
between all the States of the Union. 

We will not pretend that the trial through which 
we have passed has faded either from our hearts or 
our memories ; yet no one will, I trust, believe that 
I would rudely rake open the smouldering embers 
that all would gladly wish to see extinguished for- 
ever, or that, deeply as I feel our great and solemn 
obligations to those who preserved ttnd defended 
the Union, I would speak one word except with 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 121 

respect and in kindness even to those who assailed 
it, and who have now submitted to its power. 

In the Union two classes of States had their 
place, differing radically in this, that in the one the 
system of slavery existed. It was a difficulty 
which the fathers could not eliminate from the 
problem before them. They dealt with it with all 
the wisdom and foresight they possessed. Strongly 
impressed with a belief in the equal rights of man, 
— for their discussions had compelled them to 
deal with fundamental principles, — they were not 
so destitute of philosophy that they did not see that 
what they demanded for themselves should be ac- 
corded to others ; and believing that the whole sys- 
tem would fade before the noble influence of free 
government, as a dark cloud melts and drifts away, 
they watched, and with jealous care, that the in- 
strument they signed should bear no trace of the 
existence of slavery. It was not thus to be ; and 
the system has passed away in the tempest of 
battle and amid the clang of arms. 

The conflict is over, the long subject race is re- 
stored to liberty, and the nation has had " under 
God a new birth of freedom." No executions, no 
harsh punishments, have sullied the conclusion ; 
day by day the material evidences of war fade 
from our sight ; the bastions sink to the level of the 
ground which surrounded them ; scarp and counter- 
scarp meet in the ditch which divided them. So 
let them pass away forever. The contest is marked 
distinctly only by the changes in the organic laws 



122 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

of tlie Constitution, which embody in more defi- 
nite forms the immortal truths of the Declaration 
of Independence. That these include more than 
its logical and necessary results cannot fairly be 
contended. Did I believe that they embraced more 
than these, did I find in that great instrument any 
changes which should place or seek to place one 
State above another, or above another class of 
States, so as to mark a victory of sections or local- 
ities, I could not rejoice, for I should know that 
we had planted the seeds of " unnumbered woes." 

To-day it is the highest duty of all, no matter 
on what side they were, but, above all, of those 
who have struggled for the preservation of the 
Union, to strive that it become one of generous 
confidence, in which all the States shall, as of old, 
stand shoulder to shoulder, if need be, against the 
world in arms. Towards those with whom we were 
lately in conflict, and who recognize that the re- 
sults are to be kept inviolate, there should be no 
feeling of resentment or bitterness. To the neces- 
sity of events they have submitted ; to the changes 
in the Constitution they have assented. We cannot 
and we do not think so basely or so meanly of 
them as to believe that they have done so except 
generously and without mental reservation. 

We know that it is not easy to readjust all the 
relations of society when one form is suddenly 
swept away ; that the sword does its work rudely, 
and not with that gradual preparation which at- 
tends the changes of peace. We realize that there 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 123 

are difficulties and distrusts not to be removed at 
once between those who have been masters and 
slaves ; yet there are none which will not ulti- 
mately disappear. All true men are with the 
South in demanding for her peace, order, honest 
and good government, and encouraging her in the 
work of rebuilding all that has been made deso- 
late. We need not doubt the issue ; she will not 
stand as the " Niobe of nations," lamenting her 
sad fate ; she will not look back to deplore a past 
which cannot and should not return ; but with the 
fire of her ancient courage she will gird herself up 
to the emergencies of her new situation, she will 
unite her people by the bonds of that mutual confi- 
dence which their mutual interests demand, and 
renew her former prosperity and her rightful in- 
fluence in the Union. 

Fellow-citizens, we stand to-day on a great bat- 
tle-field in honor of the patriotism and valor of 
those who fought upon it. It is the step which 
they made in the world's history we would seek to 
commemorate ; it is the example which they have 
offered us we would seek to imitate. The wise and 
thoughtful men who directed the Revolution knew 
well that it is by the wars which personal ambition 
has stimulated, by the armies whose force has been 
wielded alike for domestic oppression or foreign 
conquest, that the sway of despots has been so 
widely maintained. They had no love for war or 
any of its works, but they were ready to meet its 
dangers in their attachment to the cause of civil 



124 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

and religious liberty. They desired to found no 
Roman republic, whose banners, " fanned by con- 
quest's crimson wing," should float victorious over 
prostrate nations, but one where the serene beauty 
of the arts of peace should put to shame the strifes 
that have impoverished peoples and degraded 
nations. To-day let us rejoice in the liberty which 
they have gained for us ; but let no utterances but 
those of peace salute our ears, no thoughts but 
those of peace animate our hearts. 

Above the plains of Marathon, even now, as the 
Grecian shepherd watches over his flocks, he fan- 
cies that the skies sometimes are filled with lurid 
liy-ht, and that in the clouds above are re-enacted 
the scenes of that great day when, on the field 
below, Greece maintained her freedom against the 
hordes who had assailed her. Again seem to come 
in long array, rich with " barbaric pearl and gold," 
the turbaned ranks of the Persian host ; and the air 
is filled with the clang of sword and shield, as 
again the fiery Greek seems to throw himself upon 
and drive before him his foreign invader, — al- 
though all are but shadows that flit in wild, 
confused masses along the spectral sky. 

Above the field where we stand, even in the 
wildest dream, may no such scenes offend the 
calmness of the upper air, but may the stars look 
forever down upon prosperity and peace, upon the 
bay studded with its white-winged ships, upon the 
populous and far-extending city, with its marts of 
commerce, its palaces of industry, its temples. 



THE BATTLE t OF BUNKER HILL. 125 

where each man may worship according to his own 
conscience ; and as the continent shall pass be- 
neath their steady rays, may the millions of happy 
homes attest a land where the benign influence of 
free government has brought happiness and con- 
tentment, where labor is rewarded, where manhood 
is honored, and where virtue and religion are 
revered ! 

Peace forever with the great country from which 
the day we commemorate did so much rudely to 
dissever us ! If there were in that time, or if 
there have been since, many things which we could 
have wished otherwise, we can easily afford to let 
them pass into oblivion. But we do not forget in 
the struggle of the Revolution how many of her 
statesmen stood forth to assert the justice of our 
cause, and to demand for us the rights of which 
we had been deprived until the celebrated address 
was passed which declared that the House of Com- 
mons would consider as enemies to the King and 
country all those who would further attempt the 
prosecution of a war on the continent of America 
for the purpose of reducing the American colonies 
to obedience. 

From her we have drawn the great body of laws 
which, modified and adapted to our different sit- 
uation, protect us to-day in our property, its de- 
scent, possession, and transmission, and which 
guard our dearer personal rights by the habeas 
corpus and the trial by jury. They were our coun- 
trvmen who from the days of King; John to those 

•J JO 



126 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

of George III. have made of England a land in 
which " freedom has broadened slowly down from 
precedent to precedent." 

It was she that placed her foot upon the " di- 
vine right of kings," and solemnly maintained that 
governments exist only by consent of the governed, 
when in 1G88 she changed the succession to the 
British Crown, and caused her rulers to reign there- 
after by a statute of Parliament. 

From her we learned the great lessons of con- 
stitutional liberty which as against her we reso- 
lutely asserted. There was no colony of any 
other kingdom of Europe that would have dreamed 
of demanding as rights those things which our 
fathers deemed their inheritance as Englishmen, 
none that would not have yielded unhesitatingly 
to any injunction of the parent State. Whatever 
differences have been or may hereafter come, let 
us remember still that we are the only two great 
distinctly settled free governments, and that 
the noble English tongue which we speak alike 
is " the language of freemen throughout the 
world." 

Above all, may there be peace forever among 
the States of this Union ! " The blood spilt here," 
said Washington, " roused the whole American 
people, and united them in defence of their rights ; 
that Union will never be broken." Prophecies may 
be made to work their own fulfilment ; and what- 
ever may have been our trials and our difficulties, 
let us spare no effort that this prophecy shall be 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 127 

realized. Achieving our independence by a com- 
mon struggle, endowed to-day with common insti- 
tutions, we see even more clearly than before 
that the States of this Union have before them 
a common destiny. 

We have commenced here in Massachusetts the 
celebration of that series of events which made of 
us a nation ; and let each, as it approaches in the 
centennial cycle, serve to kindle anew the fires of 
patriotism. Let us meet on the fields where our 
fathers fought, and where they lie, whether they 
fell with the stern joy of victory irradiating their 
countenances, or in the gloomy hours of disaster 
and defeat, — alike in remembrance of Saratoga 
and Yorktown, and of the dreary winter of Valley 
Forge, at Trenton and Princeton, and at the spots 
immortalized in the bloody campaign of the Jer- 
seys, at King's Mountain and Charleston, at Cam- 
den and Guilford Court House, and along the track 
of the steadily fighting, slowly retreating Greene 
through the Carolinas. 

Above all, at the city from which went forth 
the Declaration that we were, and of right ought 
to be, a free and independent nation, let us gather, 
and, by the sacred memories of the great departed, 
pledge ourselves to transmit untarnished the heri- 
tage they have left us. 

The soldiers of the Revolution are gone ; the 
statesmen who embodied their work in the Consti- 
tution of the United States have passed away. 
With them, too, sleep those who in the earlier 



128 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

days watched the development of this wondrous 
frame of government. 

The mighty master of thought and speech, 1 by 
whose voice fifty years ago was dedicated the 
Monument at whose base we stand, and whose 
noble argument that the Constitution is not a com- 
pact, but a law, by its nature supreme and perpet- 
ual, won for him the proud name of the Expounder 
of the Constitution, rests with those whose w r ork 
he so nobly vindicated, happy at least that his eyes 
were not permitted to behold the sad sight of 
States "discordant and belligerent," and a land 
" drenched in fraternal blood." 

The lips of him 2 who twenty-five years ago com- 
memorated this anniversary with that surpassing 
grace and eloquence all his own, and with that spirit 
of pure patriotism in which we may strive at least 
to imitate him, are silent now. Throughout the 
cruel years of war that clarion voice, sweet yet far- 
resounding, summoned his countrymen to the 
struggle on which our Union depended ; yet the 
last time that it waked the echoes of the ancient 
hall dedicated to liberty, even while the retiring 
storm yet thundered along the horizon, it was to 
speak words of love and charity to the distressed 
people of the South. 

But although they have passed beyond the veil 
which separates the unseen world from mortal 
gaze, the lessons which they have left remain, ad- 
juring us, whatever may have been the perils, the 

1 Daniel Webster. 2 Edward Everett. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 129 

discords, the sorrows of the past, to struggle al- 
ways for that " more perfect Union" ordained by 
the Constitution. Here, at least, however poor 
and inadequate for an occasion that rises so vast 
and grand above us our words may be, none shall 
be uttered that are not in regard and love to all of 
our fellow-citizens, no feelings indulged except 
those of anxious desire for their prosperity and 
happiness. 

Besides those of New England, we are gratified 
to-day by the presence of military organizations 
from New York and Pennsylvania, from Maryland, 
Virginia, and South Carolina, as well as by that of 
distinguished citizens from these and other States 
of the Union. Their fathers were ancient friends 
of Massachusetts ; it was the inspiration they gave 
which strengthened the heart and nerved the arm 
of every man of New England. In every proper 
and larger sense the soil upon which their sons stand 
to-day is theirs as much as ours ; and wherever 
there may have been estrangement, here at least 
we have met upon common ground. They unite 
with us in recognition of the great principles of 
civil and religious liberty, and in pious memory of 
those who vindicated them ; they join with us in 
the wish to make of this regenerated Union a 
power grander and more august than its founders 
dared to hope. 

Standing always in generous remembrance of 
every section of the Union, neither now nor here- 
after will we distinguish between States or sections 



130 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

in our anxiety for the glory and happiness of all. 
To-day upon the verge of the centuries, as together 
we look back upon that which is gone, in deep and 
heartfelt gratitude for the prosperity so largely 
enjoyed by us, so together will we look forward 
serenely and with confidence to that which is ad- 
vancing. Together will we utter our solemn aspi- 
rations in the spirit of the motto of the city which 
now encloses within its limits the battle-field and 
the town for which the battle was fought : " As 
God was to our fathers, so may he be to us ! " 



ORATION 

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT 
AT BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1877. 



Mr. Mayor, Fellow-Citizens, and Com- 
rades, — On the anniversary of a day thrice 
memorable, as that of the first settlement of this 
town in 1630 ; as that of the adoption of the Con- 
stitution of the United States in 1789 ; as that of 
a great battle fought for the Union on the soil of 
Maryland in 1862 (the victorious commander in 
which is to-day among our most honored and il- 
lustrious guests), — we have assembled to dedicate 
this Monument to the memory of the brave who 
fell in that great conflict, which, commencing 
for the unity of the government, broadened and 
deepened into one for the equal rights of all men. 
Before we part, some words should be spoken 
seeking to express, however inadequately, our 
gratitude to those to whom it is devoted. Yet 
our ceremonial will be but vain and empty if its 
outward acts are not the expressions of feelings 
deeper than either acts or words. Its true dedica- 
tion is to be found in the emotions which have been 
kindled by the occasion itself, and to which every 
heart has yielded. Here, in this city, the capital 
of Massachusetts, — a State from which more than 



132 THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 

sixty gallant regiments were sent to the field under 
the inspiration of her illustrious Governor, who 
now himself sleeps with those whom he sent forth 
to battle, — we seek to surrender by this solemn 
act, from the age that is passing to the ages that 
are coming, for eternal memory and honor, the just 
fame of those who have died for the Union. 

This is no Monument to the glories of war. 
While great changes for good have been wrought, 
and great steps taken towards liberty and civiliza- 
tion, by the convulsive energies exhibited in wars, 
these are but exceptions to the great rule that of all 
the causes which have degraded nations, opposed 
human progress, and oppressed industry, war 
has been one of the worst. If this were the ob- 
ject of this memorial, it were better far that the 
stones which compose it had slumbered in their 
native quarries. No pomp and circumstance, no 
waving of banners, no dancing of plumes, can 
lend to war true dignity. This is to be found 
alone in a great and noble cause. 

Nor is this a Monument to valor only. There 
is something honorable in the true soldier, who, 
resolutely hazarding life, stands for the flag he 
follows ; but there is that which is higher and 
nobler here. Among the finest monuments of 
Europe is that which is found in the beautiful 
valley of Lucerne, to the memory of the Swiss 
Guard who fell around Louis XVI., when the 
furious mob had stormed his palace. Placed in 
a niche of the limestone cliff, of which it forms 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 133 

a part, a lion pierced with a spear still holds in 
his death-grip the shield on which are carved the 
arms of the Bourbons. Few works of art are more 
majestic, or more fully show the hand of the mas- 
ter. It is courage only that it honors; and you 
wonder at the power which has so ennobled and 
dignified it, when the great idea of patriotism 
was wanting. The Swiss, whom it commemo- 
rates, simply did bravely the work which they 
had contracted to do, when the subjects of the 
king, whose bread they had eaten, and whose 
wine they had drank, deserted him. The men 
whom we commemorate were brave as these, yet 
their place in history is not with them. It is 
with the soldiers of liberty, who with patriotic 
devotion have fallen a willing sacrifice for their 
country. It is with the Swiss who, at Sempach 
or Morgarten, in defence of their own freedom, 
broke the power of the House of Austria, and not 
with the mercenaries whom they sent to fight the 
battles of Europe. 

The sentiment of this Monument is patriotism. 
The men whom it honors were soldiers, coura- 
geous to the death ; but it is their cause which 
sets them apart for just honor and commenda- 
tion among the millions who have laid down 
their lives upon the battle-field. Patriotism such 
as theirs is the highest of civic virtues, the noblest 
form of heroism. Those who perilled their lives 
in obedience to its promptings could gain no more 
than those who remained at home in inglorious 



134 THE -SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 

ease ; and yet they laid aside their hopes of com- 
fort, to die for us. That the government they 
had lived under might be preserved, that the 
just and equal rights of all men might be main- 
tained, they encountered disease, danger, and 
death, in all the horrid forms in which they 
present themselves to every one who takes his 
place in the ranks of an army, with the solemn 
belief that in no other way could they discharge 
the obligation imposed upon them by their birth- 
right as citizens of a free countrv. Whatever 
might be its difficulties and dangers, their path 
was so clearly indicated that they deemed they 
could not err in following it. When they fought 
and fell, they could not know but that their efforts 
would be in vain, and the great flag, the symbol 
of our united sovereignty, be rent asunder ; but 
they were ready to risk all, and to dare all, in 
the effort to deserve success. 

They were animated by no fierce fire of ambi- 
tion, no desire to exalt themselves, no expecta- 
tion of attaining those rewards which are gained 
by great chieftains. They had no such hopes. 
They knew well that all the honor they could 
obtain was that general meed of praise awarded 
to all who serve faithfully, but which would not 
separate them from others who had been brave 
and true. No doubt, as the blood of youth 
was high in their veins, they looked forward 
in some instances to the stern joy of the con- 
flict ; but beyond and above its tempest, fire, and 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 135 

smoke, they beheld and strove for the great ob- 
jects of the contest. 

To-day they have seemed to come again as 
when they moved out in serried lines, with 
the flag which they went to defend waving 
above their heads. Again we have seemed to 
see them, their faces lighted with patriotic en- 
thusiasm ; and we have recalled the varied scenes 
of their stern and manly service, which was to 
end in a soldier's death for the country to which 
they had devoted themselves, — in each and every 
fortune patient and determined, staining their 
cause with no weakness or cowardice, dishonor- 
ing it by no baseness or cruelty. 

When we reflect how little our system of educa- 
tion is calculated to adapt men to the restraints of 
military service, how inconsistent its largeness and 
freedom is with that stern control which necessarily 
marks a system intended to give to a single mind 
the power which is embodied in thousands of men, 
we may well wonder at the ready submission which 
was always given to its exactions. To some the 
possession of marked military qualities, adapting 
them to control others, gave prominence ; to some 
mere accidents of time or circumstance may have 
given high commands, while others, not less worthy, 
filled only their places, and did their duty in the 
ranks. But those who led must often have felt 
that their highest desire should be to be worthy 
of the devotion of those who followed. The dis- 
tinctions necessary to discipline have long since 



136 THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 

passed away. Side by side, on fields bought by 
their blood, " no useless coffins around their 
breasts," but wrapped in the blanket which is the 
soldier's martial shroud, awaiting the coming of 
the Eternal Day, they rest together. 

What matter is it when men have given their 
utmost in intellect, strength, and courage and 
their blood to the last drop, whether they fell 
with the stars of the general, the eagles of the 
colonel, on their shoulders, or in the simple jacket 
of the private ? Wherever " on fame's eternal 
camping-ground their silent tents are spread," 
in the tangled wildwood, in the stately cemetery, 
or in nameless graves not even marked by the 
word " unknown," the earth that bears them 
dead bears not alive more true or noble men. 
To-day we remember them all, without regard to 
rank or race, seeking to honor those whom we 
cannot by name identify. 

If we do not commend patriotism such as these 
men exhibited, to whom are we to turn in the 
hour of danger which may come to those who 
are to succeed us, as it did to ourselves ? Lessons 
such as they have given are not to be idly 
neglected when the time is gone when their ser- 
vices have ceased to be of immediate value. We 
shall not need to go to Marathon and Platea for 
examples, whose brethren have shed their blood 
on fields as fiercely contested as those ; and it 
would be idle to go anywhere for examples, un- 
less in rendering homage to the valor and patri- 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 137 

otism displayed by our brethren, we seek to 
reconsecrate ourselves to the same virtues. Every 
instinct of justice calls upon us for the appro- 
priate meed of praise ; every suggestion of wisdom 
counsels that we omit no opportunity to instil into 
others the admiration with which these deeds are 
regarded. The fables of romance, which, in some 
form, each nation of Europe has, that in great 
emergencies their illustrious chiefs will return 
again to rescue them, are not altogether myths. 
To each people that loves bravery and patriotism 
come again in their hour of trial the old heroic 
souls, although the form and garb they wear is 
of their age and time. 

The time for natural tears has passed. To 
every heart the years have brought their new 
store of joys and sorrows since these men made 
their great sacrifice for country. The struc- 
ture that we have reared stands to honor, and 
not to mourn, the dead. So shall it stand when 
we in our turn are gone, to teach its lesson of 
duty nobly done, at the expense of life itself, to 
those who are in turn to take upon themselves 
the duties of life. 

Those whose names it honors were known and 
loved by us, and are not to be recalled but with 
that manly sorrow born of respect and love. 
There are those also to whom they were even 
nearer and dearer than to us, who knew them as 
comrades, whose homes are forever darkened by 
the absence of the light of affection which their 



138 THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 

presence shed around them. But the age comes 
swiftly on which is to know them only by their 
deeds. We commend them to the grave and im- 
partial tribunal of history as patriotic and devoted 
citizens ; we invoke the considerate judgment of 
the world upon the justice of their cause ; we re- 
new and reiterate the assertion that there was a 
solemn duty laid upon them by their time, their 
place, their country, and that such duty they met 
and performed. To them, as to the Spartans who 
fell around their king in stern defence of the liber- 
ties of Greece, changing but the name of the battle- 
field, apply the words which Simonides uttered : 

" Of those who at Thermopylae were slain, 
Glorious the doom and beautiful the lot, 
Their tomb an altar, men from tears refrain, 
Honor and praise, but mourn them not." 

Although this Monument may often be passed 
as a thing of custom, although the lesson which it 
teaches may seem to be forgotten, yet in the hour 
of trial, if it is to come to others as it came to us, 
this Monument will be freshly remembered. As 
in the Roman story which tells of Hannibal, the 
mightiest enemy Rome ever knew, it is related that 
his father, Hamilcar, himself a chieftain and a 
warrior, whose renown has been eclipsed by that of 
his greater son, brought him when a child of nine 
years old into the Temple of the Gods, that he 
might lift his little hands to swear eternal hostility 
to the tyranny of Rome, — so shall those who sue- 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 139 

ceed us come here to swear hostility, not to one 
grasping power only, but to every tyranny that 
would enslave the body or enchain the mind of 
man, and eternal devotion to the great principles 
of civil and religious liberty. 

Nor is this Monument, while it asserts our be- 
lief in the fidelity of these men, in any sense un- 
kind or ungenerous towards those with whom they 
were engaged in deadly strife. It bears no words 
of boasting or unseemly exultation ; and the as- 
sertion of the justice of our cause, though firmly 
made, is yet not made in any harsh or contro- 
versial spirit. We recognize fully that those 
with whom we warred were our countrymen ; 
we know their valor and determination ; we 
know that no foot of ground was yielded to us 
until to hold it became impossible, and that they 
resisted until men and means utterly and hope- 
lessly failed. Whatever we may think of their 
cause, that as a people they believed in it cannot 
fairly be questioned. Men do not sacrifice life and 
property without stint or measure except in the 
faith that they are right. Upon individuals we 
may charge unreasonable temper, intolerance, pas- 
sion, and the promptings of a selfish and ill-regu- 
lated ambition ; but the whole body of a people 
do not act from motives thus personal, and have a 
right to have their bravery and sincerity admitted, 
even if more cannot be conceded. 

The great conflict was fought out and the victory 
won which has established forever, if the force of 



140 THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 

arms can establish any tiling, that the Republic 
is one and indivisible ; and amid the roar of 
battle and the clash of arms, the institution of 
slavery which divided us as a nation, which made 
of the States two classes diverse and discordant, 
has passed away. Perhaps if we had fully 
known all that it was to cost, both at the North 
and South, we should have hesitated more than 
we did before engaging in a strife so deadly and 
terrible. Yet as we consider all the woes which 
must have followed the dismemberment of the 
Union, as we contemplate the vast gain for 
peace, freedom, and equality by the emancipation 
of the subject race from slavery and the dominant 
race itself from the corrupting influence of this 
thraldom, w T ho shall say that we have any right 
to deplore the past except with mitigated grief ? 
We are yet too near the events through which 
we were swept upon the bloody currents of the 
war to appreciate their full extent and magnitude, 
or all the consequences which are to flow from 
them. We know already that we enter upon a 
higher plane of national life, when it is estab- 
lished that there are no exceptions to the great 
rules of liberty among men, and that each is en- 
titled to the just rewards of his labor and the 
position to which his talents, ability, and virtue 
entitle him. As w T e stand here in memory of 
our gallant dead, we urge upon all who have 
contended with them to unite with us in the 
effort to make of our new and regenerated gov- 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 141 

ernment, purified by the fires of our civil con- 
flict, a republic more noble and more august 
than its founders had dared to hope. 

Among all patriotic men there is everywhere an 
earnest desire that there shall be full peace and 
reconciliation between the sections of the Union. 
Whatever may have been former divisions, there 
is nothing in the events of the past, there is 
nothing in the present condition of things, which 
should forbid this. We can stand, firmly and 
securely stand, upon that which has been defi- 
nitely settled by the war. Ours was not a 
mere conflict of dynasties, or of families, like 
the English Wars of the Roses, in which the 
great Houses of York and Lancaster disputed for 
the English Crown. It was a great elemental 
conflict, in which two opposite systems of civi- 
lization were front to front and face to face. It 
was necessary that one or the other should con- 
quer, and that it should be settled whether the 
continent should be all free or all slave. Yet 
the history of civil wars demonstrates that the 
widest and saddest differences of religion, the 
most radical differences as to the form of gov- 
ernment, have not prevented firm union when 
the cause of dissension was obliterated. 

Now that it is determined that the Union is to 
exist, it must be rendered one of mutual respect 
and regard, as well as of mutual interest. Un- 
less this is the case, there is no cohesive pressure 
of either internal or external force strong enough 



142 THE SOLDIERS' MONUiMENT AT BOSTON. 

to maintain it. There must have been a party 
victorious and a party vanquished ; but there is 
no true victory anywhere unless the conclusion 
is for the interest of each and all. It is not the 
least of the just claims that the American 
Revolution has upon the friends of liberty 
everywhere that while it terminated in the dis- 
memberment of the British Empire, it left the 
English a more free people than they would have 
been but for its occurrence. It settled for them 
more firmly the great safeguards of English 
liberty in the right of the habeas corpus, the 
trial by jury, and the great doctrine that repre- 
sentation must accompany taxation. We speak 
of it as the victory of Adams and Jefferson, but 
it was not less that of Chatham and Burke. 

I should deem the war for the Union a failure, 
I should think the victory won by these men 
who have died in its defence barren, if it should 
not prove in every larger sense won for the 
South as well as the North ; if it should not be 
shown that it is better for her that the contest 
against its rightful authority failed. 

It is not to be expected that opinion will be 
changed by edicts, even when those edicts are 
maintained by force. The changes of opinion 
must be gradual, and must be the effect of that 
time which enables feeling to subside and the judg- 
ment to act. Already there are brave and reflect- 
ing men who fought against us who do not hesitate 
to acknowledge that the end was well for them as 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 143 

for us, and who look forward hopefully to better 
results than could have been expected from a Con- 
federacy which, if it had been founded, would have 
been at the mercy of each individual State. Nor 
is there any one bold enough to say, now that the 
system of slavery is destroyed, that he would 
raise a hand or lift a finger to replace it. That 
the cause for which they have suffered so much 
will still be dear to those who fought for it, or 
with whom it is associated by tender and affec- 
tionate recollections of those whom they loved, 
who fell in its defence, is to be expected. To 
such sentiments and feelings it is a matter of in- 
difference whether there is defeat or success. They 
would exist, indeed, even if the reason and judg- 
ment should concede the cause to have been un- 
wise. Certainly, we ourselves, had the war for 
the Union failed, would not the less have believed 
it just and necessar}^ nor the less have honored 
the memory of those engaged in it. When re- 
sults are accepted cordially, we can ask no more 
until the softening influences of time have done 
their work. 

On the fields which were ploughed by the fierce 
artillery the wheat has been dancing fresh and fair 
in the breezes of the summer that is gone ; and as 
the material evidences of the conflict pass away, 
so let each feeling of bitterness disappear, as to- 
gether, both North and South, we strive to render 
the Republic one whose firm yet genial sway shall 
protect with just and equal laws each citizen who 



144 THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 

yields obedience to her power. Asking for our- 
selves no rights that we do not freely concede to 
others, demanding no restraints upon others that 
we do not readily submit to ourselves, yielding a 
generous obedience to the Constitution in all its 
parts, both new and old, let us endeavor to lift 
ourselves to that higher level of patriotism which 
despises any narrow sectionalism, and rejoices in 
a nationality broad enough to embrace every sec- 
tion of the Union, and each one of its people, 
whether high or humble, rich or poor, black or 
white. 

There is no division to-day among the States of 
the Union such as existed when the Constitution 
was formed. In each and all the great principles 
of liberty and equal rights are the same, to be alike 
respected as the only basis upon which the govern- 
ment can stand. Whatever may have been the 
sorrows or the losses of the war, there is no sor- 
row that cannot find its recompense in the added 
grandeur and dignity of the whole country. 

Comrades, — It is the last time that we, who 
have marched under the flag, and been the soldiers 
of the Union in its mortal struggle, shall gather in 
such numbers as meet to-day. We are an army to 
whom can come no recruits. The steady, resistless 
artillery of time hurls its deadly missiles upon us, 
and each hour we are fewer and weaker. But as 
we stand together thus, as we remember how nobly 
and bravely life's work was done by these men 



THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BOSTON. 14-5 

whom we have sought to commemorate, let us 
believe that, the tie which binds us to them in a 
great and holy cause is not wholly dissolved. 
Their worldly task is done ; their solemn oath, 
which we took side by side with them, is per- 
formed. For us life brings each day its new 
duties and new responsibilities. 

In the classic mythology, which was the reli- 
gion of the ancient world, it was fabled that the 
heroes were demi-gods. Raised above the race of 
man, and yet not so far but that their example 
might be imitated, they served to animate those 
who yet struggled with their mortal surroundings. 
So should these, our heroes, while the dust of 
life's conflict is yet on us, inspire us to loftier 
purposes and nobler lives. And as we leave 
them to their glorious repose and their pure 
and noble fame, let us go forth exalted by these 
hours of communion with them. 

Above them, as we depart, we utter the ancient 
form of words, and yet in no formal way, which 
conclude the proclamations of the State whose 
children they were : " God save the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts ! " And to this we 
add, with not less of fervor or solemnity, the 
prayer which was in their hearts and upon their 
lips as they died : " God save the Union of the 
American States ! " 



10 



ADDRESS 

AT THE COMMEMORATION OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND 
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST PARISH CHURCH 
OF CHARLESTOWN, NOVEMBER 12, 1882. 



The occasion has been one of the greatest in- 
terest ; while I have listened with pleasure and 
instruction, I could have wished that it might have 
passed without any words from me, — not, cer- 
tainly, that I would fail in anything that could 
do honor to the founders of this church, but that 
I feel how little I can utter worthy of the 
occasion. 

The anniversary of this church is inextricably 
connected with that of the First Church of Boston. 
It- is not so much an outgrowth, or an offshoot, as 
one of its integral parts ; while its formal organi- 
zation dates from 1632, its real organization is 
that of the church formed here in 1630. The 
charter of the Massachusetts Company had been 
transformed by a large latitude of construction, 
and by a yet larger latitude had been deemed to 
authorize the foundation of a colony which was 
to govern itself. A State was to be founded here 
which was to rest upon the rock of the Church. 
While the immigrants were houseless, scattered 



148 THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHARLESTOWN. 

around this hill, seeking to satisfy the most simple 
and necessary wants, yet spiritual needs must be 
satisfied first. We stand upon the hill upon which 
they stood, — almost, it may be, upon the very 
spot. It was here, too, that the Court of Assist- 
ants first met, and the political life of the colony 
commenced almost contemporaneously with that 
of the church. Clearly, to use the words of Dr. 
Johnson, " ours is not the frigid philosophy which 
would conduct us indifferent and unmoved over 
any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, 
bravery, or virtue ; " and the place where we stand 
may well inspire us with elevated thought and 
solemn reflection as we contemplate these men 
and their work, aided as we have been by the 
noble commemorative discourse of the afternoon, 
and the interesting historical paper of the evening. 
It has been the pleasure, sometimes, of histo- 
rians to attribute fabulous qualities to the early 
chiefs and founders of the nations whose annals 
they celebrate. The Greeks and Romans claimed 
theirs to be among the gods of classic mythology. 
The King Arthurs and King Alfreds of Britain's 
centuries of romance may be invested with such 
qualities, or seen through such colors, as romance 
or poetry may select. But we know the founders 
of New England as they were. They live for us 
in their works, in the legislation of their colony, in 
the chronicles of their churches, so faithfully re- 
calling their doubts and their trials. We know 
them in the intercourse of daily life, — in their 



THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHARLESTOWX. 149 

struggles with want, with the savages who encom- 
passed them, and their far severer struggles to 
reach that exalted faith and experience more val- 
uable than any earthly blessings. We know them 
in their most intimate correspondence with friends, 
revealing the deepest and tenderest secrets of their 
hearts. Everywhere they are the same in this, 
— that they have no fears of any earthly power, 
no repinings, however hard misfortune may be 
upon them, so long as they feel they are doing the 
work of the Lord. For them, earthly honors were 
nothing, their religious and spiritual freedom every- 
thing ; and yet with this they knew that their 
civil freedom was united. As we behold them, — 
grave it may be that they were in aspect, for the 
responsibility they have assumed is solemn, and it 
is due to no earthly power ; stern it may be that 
they were in feature, for an indomitable will can 
alone sustain them ; plain, it may be, even to 
rudeness, they may be in dress, for the work they 
are to do in the world is not for those who wear 
soft raiment or who dwell in kings' houses, — yet 
could we see them as they once stood here, we 
should know how high resolve, earnest purpose, 
devoted faith, had impressed itself upon and dig- 
nified their rugo-ed features. 

But although the means of knowing them well 
are revealed to us in so many ways, it is not easy to 
judge them fairly. It is because we cannot sepa- 
rate ourselves from that which surrounds us so 
as to look out upon life as they looked upon 



150 THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHARLESTOWN. 

it. They have a right to be judged from their 
own standpoint, and from the temper, spirit, and 
thought of the age which was about them. They 
were men in lofty conception far above the age in 
which they lived ; yet the age in which they lived 
constituted an environment out of which no man 
ever entirely burst. 

" The Puritans," says Lord Macaulay, " were 
perhaps the most remarkable body of men the 
world has ever known." There has been far too 
great a disposition to describe them by their de- 
ficiencies and limitations, rather than by their 
great and positive merits. It is said that they 
sternly repressed here every form of religious 
worship except their own ; yet it is to be remem- 
bered that they lived in an age when no such thing 
as toleration was known. Persecution was the 
rule and not the exception. They deemed also — 
and perhaps rightly deemed — that in no other 
way could they preserve and sustain the faith 
which was the anchor of their hope, than by con- 
fining their colony to those of their own church, 
or those affiliated to it. This was the extent of 
their claim. For the enjoyment of that which was 
dear to them they left the homes of their fathers, 
they braved the stormy sea, they contended with 
the stern soil and inhospitable climate, and all 
the terrors of a savage wilderness. They invited, 
no one to share their dangers ; they desired no 
one whose presence might imperil the existence 
of their faith. It was the peculiarity of their 



THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHARLESTOWX. 151 

situation here, rather than any erroneous general 
view of the rights of all men to civil and religious 
liberty, that caused them to wish that all who 
came here should be of their own faith. The emi- 
gration to New England was largely developed 
by the struggle which had already commenced be- 
tween King Charles and his Parliament. However 
that might end, one place these men were deter- 
mined should exist where they could worship God 
in their own way. For this they must hold their 
power untrammelled by those who cherished other 
modes of belief. That emigration went on, as it is 
usually estimated, until something over twenty 
thousand had arrived here from England. It 
ceased then, for Charles and his Parliament were 
at last in open war, and the place of all who 
thought as they did was in England. Many men 
who had come to Massachusetts returned to join 
in the struggle there. They went to stand in the 
ranks of Skippon and Ireton ; or to ride, it may 
be, by the side of Oliver himself, as with his Iron- 
sides, he beat down and trampled under foot Prince 
Rupert and his cavaliers ; or, it may be, — like 
the noblest of their number, Hugh Peters and Sir 
Harry Vane, — to seal their devotion to their faith 
upon the block. When power came — as it did 
come — into the hands of the English Puritans, the 
religious belief of others was respected. Mr. Hume, 
the bitterest of their critics, says of them : " Of all 
Christian sects, this was the first which durino- its 
prosperity as well as its adversity always adopted 



152 THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHARLESTOWN. 

the principle of toleration." Of course, Mr. Hume 
is careful to add one of his usual sneers, by re- 
marking that it is extraordinary that what is so 
just should have proceeded, not from reasoning, 
but from extravagance and fanaticism. 

The connection which our fathers of 1630 made 
between the government of the Church and that 
of the State — or more properly, the Colony — was 
soon dissolved. While the law that each freeman 
must be a church-member appears to have con- 
tinued until the colonial passed into the provincial 
government, yet it was latterly neglected and dis- 
regarded. The things which were Cassar's went 
to Csesar. 

But although all this was just and necessary, — 
and although the Massachusetts which they knew 
was but a feeble colony, fringing with its scattered 
hamlets the stormy sea, and that which we know 
is a wealthy and powerful State, an integral por- 
tion of a vast nation whose gateways are upon 
the Atlantic and Pacific seas, — let the example 
of our Puritan founders remain with us always. 
The noble lives they led in want and privation 
and clanger do not pass away utterly. We will 
strive at least that the lessons they taught of self- 
devotion, the sacrifices they made for liberty, the 
high ideals the}- held up of virtue and courage, 
the lofty standard they maintained of religion 
and piety, shall not be altogether forgotten. No 
men have ever impressed themselves more upon 
a nation than have the Puritan founders of New 



THE FIRST CHURCH OF CIIARLESTOWN. 153 

England. The principles dear to them, and to 
which they devoted their lives, are in the vanguard 
of every struggle for justice or liberty. 

I cannot conclude without one earnest wish for 
the prosperity of this ancient church. Apart from 
its great historic associations, it is dear to me by 
the tender memory of many who were its honored 
and respected members, with whom I am con- 
nected by blood and family ties, two of whom 
are commemorated on the walls around us. For 
two hundred and fifty years its voice has been 
heard, instructing and inspiring thousands of 
grateful and responsive hearts. So may it be for 
centuries to come ! Still may its voice go forth 
summoning men to higher and nobler lives, in 
solemn remembrance of him to whom they are 
accountable, rebuking — if rebuke be needed — 
tenderly and charitably, yet encouraging and con- 
soling always. Although forms of worship may 
change, although the solemn swell of the organ or 
the pealing of the chimes above our heads might 
have seemed to those who founded this church in- 
consistent with the severe simplicity dear to them, 
yet these are but accessories only. We will not 
doubt that in the brighter light in which they 
stand, and with the larger vision with which now 
they see, the}' will acknowledge their communion 
with it so long as, in the language of the covenant 
made here, — often quoted to-day, and yet not too 
often, — it shall teach men to walk in all their 



154 THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHARLESTOWN. 

ways according to the rule of the gospel, and in 
all sincere conformity to the holy ordinances of 
our Saviour, and " in mutual love and respect, 
each to the other, so near as God shall give us 
grace." 












COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS ON 
GENERAL GRANT. 

DELIVERED AT FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, JULY 26, 1885. 



Your Excellency, Fellow-citizens, — A na- 
tion has watched by the dying couch of its great- 
est citizen. The leader of its armies in battle, 
the head of its civil government in peace, — anx- 
iety, hope, and fear have contended, until at last it 
became certain that human efforts were in vain, 
and that he who had been a tower of strength 
in the hour of a people's agony was to pass from 
among living men. Well may a nation swell the 
funeral ciw for him whose strong hand and daring 
heart secured and protected its life. 

As he has waited in the august majesty of 
impending death, there have seemed to gather 
round him the tender memories of all who offered 
their lives for their country in our great civil strife. 
The crowds that collected about his house in the 
great city, when some two or three months ago 
his death seemed immediate, were not mere curi- 
osity-seekers : there were fathers and brothers; 
there were mothers that had given their sons ; 
there were girls (elderly women now) who had 
given up their lovers. To me these groups seem 



156 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

infinitely affecting, for they were of those who in 
that struggle had parted forever from their best 
and noblest. To the great chieftain who had led 
their brave through so many a hot and bloody 
day they brought the mute offering of their rev- 
erence and love, for it was to him they owed it 
that those noble lives had not been sacrificed in 
vain. As he was the chieftain, so he was the 
representative of the Federal Army, — that army 
which, springing from the people itself, vindicated 
the integrity of the American Union, swept from 
its States the curse of slavery, and lifted a nation 
to a higher and nobler life. That great army has 
passed away long since, yet it shall not be for- 
gotten that in its day and generation, and in its 
time and place, it did for this country deeds 
worthy of immortal honor. It is twenty-four years 
since the great battle-summer of 1861. To each 
of us they have brought joy and sorrow in their 
mingled web ; but we turn back to that time 
freshly still as the tolling bell and the muffled 
drum announce that Grant has sunk to his final 
repose. 

" Ne'er to the chambers where the mighty rest 
Since their foundation came a nobler guest." 

To-day is not one for criticism, even if it be 
candid and not unkindly. Our sense of loss is too 
acute ; our emotions are too keen. Nor perhaps at 
any time could those of us who have followed 
him, who have known what it w T as to lean upon 
that determined will, who have seen him with the 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 157 

light of battle on his cheek, assume to speak of 
him with the cold neutrality of impartial history. 
If to that great tribunal all must come, we are not 
competent to sit thereon as judges. Some future 
historian, some Parkman, some Bancroft, shall 
compare him with the great captains of antiquity 
or of modern history, shall weigh in nice scales his 
successes or his failures, the means at his com- 
mand, the purposes he had in view, the results he 
finally accomplished, and shall then assign him his 
appropriate place. High although it must be, for 
this I shall care little, for his name is written 
indelibly upon a nobler list. His place is not with 
the Caesars and the Hannibals, the Fredericks or 
Napoleons, — the conquerors who have waded 
to fame or empire through blood and carnage, 
— but with those who in the hour of danger 
and distress have borne upon their shoulders the 
weight of mighty States, who have preferred 
patriotism, duty, and honor to any selfish aggran- 
dizement, who have drawn the sword reluctantly, 
who have sheathed it willingly when the time for 
reconciliation had come, and at the head of whom 
stands, peerless and immortal, our own Wash- 
ington. His fame, like that of Washington, shall 
form forever one of the brightest jewels in the 
radiant crown of the Eepublic. It shall broaden and 
widen as her domains shall spread, as her vast and 
fertile wastes shall be peopled, and as great cities 
shall rise where to-day only the hum of the wild 
bee breaks the stillness of the fragrant air. Yet 



158 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

to no generation of men can he be all that he has 
been to us. Already to many almost approaching 
middle life his achievements are but historical. 
But with us, who were of his time, there is a 
personal love and veneration towards him which 
cannot be communicated to others. All around 
him throughout the broad land there stretches 
the wide circle of those who perhaps never looked 
upon his bodily presence, but who feel his loss as a 
personal grief. He has so inwrought himself with 
their just and patriotic feeling in the years 
that are past that to them the earth itself seems 
less fair, this gorgeous, glowing summer less 
bright, now that he is gone. Willingly would 
I speak some words that shall tell the love we 
have borne him, the honor in which we hold bis 
great deeds, the gratitude we have for all he has 
so splendidly done, but I realize how poor my 
utterance is. 

The mean and sordid pecuniary cares that vexed 
his closing years of life but showed how truly 
resolute and upright he was. In selecting men in 
military life in whom to repose confidence, his 
view was singularly correct and just ; it might be 
said to be perfect. He was a soldier to the 
inmost core ; he knew everything that he needed 
then, and made no mistakes. His education and 
studies had not fitted him with the same judg- 
ment in civil life. It was an error of a trustful, 
generous nature that led him to stand by those in 
whom he had once reposed confidence, even after 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 159 

there was legitimate reason for distrust. He gave 
generously and withdrew reluctantly, and thus as 
a civilian he was more than once grievously 
abused in official life. That he should show the 
same disposition in dealing with his private and 
personal affairs might have been anticipated ; but 
it was an error which most cruelly he was com- 
pelled to answer. Betrayed by cunning, intrigu- 
ing knaves, when financial ruin came, he met it 
with the old calm resolution. He was ready at 
once to strip himself of all he possessed, even of 
the very gifts which were the just memorials of 
his fame, that he might satisfy those who had 
trusted in him. Financial and commercial honor 
were as dear to him as any other honor. Calmly 
and resolutely he devoted himself to those unaccus- 
tomed labors by which he hoped to provide for 
those he was to leave behind him ; and although 
racking pains always assailed him, although the 
weary brain and the once strong hand from time 
to time refused their office, he had the satisfaction 
of knowing that what he had undertaken he had 
accomplished. Recognition of his great services, 
even if somewhat tardily, came in his restoration 
to that position in the army which he had 
resigned in obedience to the call of the country, 
and it was a profound gratification to him to feel, 
ere he passed away, that the pecuniary future of 
his family would be provided for. Let them 
believe that the tenderest love of a grateful people 
will encompass them always. 



160 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

It is twenty years s'mce the only name worthy 
to be mentioned with that of General Grant has 
passed into history. It seems like a caprice of 
fortune that while the great soldier of the War of 
the Rebellion went almost unscathed through an 
hundred fights, its great statesman should die by 
the assassin's hand. As to the great Hebrew 
chieftain who had led Israel through the Red Sea 
and the desert, it was ordained that he should 
but look on the promised land, so to Abraham 
Lincoln it was given but to know that the Union 
was restored, that his life's work was done, and to 
die in the hour of final triumph. Between these 
great men, from the day they met (and they had 
never seen eacb other's faces until after nearly 
three years of war) until the day Mr. Lincoln died, 
there had been the most generous confidence, the 
most trustful regard, the most firm faith that each 
had done in the past and would do in the future 
the utmost possible to sustain the other. How 
like a wonderful romance it reads, that in that 
time of less than three years, from a simple 
captain, whose offer of his services to the War 
Department was thought of so little consequence 
that the letter, although since carefully searched 
for, cannot be found, Grant had risen from rank 
to rank until he became the lieutenant-general 
who was to unite all the military springs of action 
in a single hand, to govern them by a single will, 
to see (to use his own expression) that the armies 
of the Union pulled no longer " like a balky 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 161 

team," but were moved and animated by a single 
purpose. Yet his way had not been one of unin- 
terrupted success, and there had been no success 
that had not been won by his own wisdom and 
courage. He had seized and controlled the Ohio, 
and held Kentucky in the Union ; he had opened 
the Tennessee and the Cumberland by the victories 
of Forts Henry and Donelson ; but the much-misun- 
derstood battle of Shiloh had reduced him, uncom- 
plaining always, to a subordinate command under 
General Halleck, whose own failure at Corinth 
finally gave to him at last the command of all 
forces operating to open the Mississippi. Again 
and again during the often-repeated repulses from 
Vicksburg there had been attempts to remove him, 
mainly at the instance of those who did not 
comprehend the vastness of the problem with 
which he had to deal. Mr. Lincoln had stood by 
him, saying in his peculiar way, "I rather like 
that man ; I guess I will try him a little longer," 
until at last Vicksburg was taken by a movement 
marked with the audacity of a master in the art of 
war, who dares to violate established rules and 
make exceptions when great emergencies demand 
that great risks shall be run. The Fourth of July, 
1863, was the proudest day the armies of the Union 
up to that time had ever known, for the thunders 
of the cannon that announced in the East the great 
victory of Gettysburg were answered from the West 
by those that told that the Mississippi in all its 
mighty length ran unvexed to the sea. 

11 



162 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

His victory at Chattanooga followed the placing 
of the armies of the West under his sole control, 
and the time had come when he was to direct the 
armies of the whole Union. His place was there- 
after with the Army of the Potomac, as the most 
decisive point of struggle, although its immediate 
command remained with General Meade. It was 
only thus and through its vicinity to the Capital 
that he could direct every military operation. As 
he entered upon the great campaign of 1864, Mr. 
Lincoln said, " If there is anything wanting which 
is within my power to give, do not fail to let me 
know it. And now with a brave army and a just 
cause may God sustain you ! " And General Grant 
had answered, " Should my success be less than 
I desire or expect, the least I can say is, the fault 
is not with you." Side by side they stood to- 
gether through all the desperate days that ensued, 
until in April, 1865, the terrific and protracted 
struggle was ended between the two great armies 
of the East ; the long-tried, always faithful Army 
of the Potomac held its great rival, the Army of 
Northern Virginia, in the iron embrace of its gleam- 
ing wall of bayonets ; and the sword of Lee was 
laid in the conquering hand of Grant. Side by 
side Lincoln and Grant will stand forever in the 
Pantheon of history ; and somewhere in the eter- 
nal plan we would willingly believe those great 
spirits shall yet guard and shield the land they 
loved and served so well. 

Whatever General Grant's errors or his weak- 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 163 

nesses, — and he was mortal, — like the spots on 
the sun, they but show the brightness of the 
surrounding surface ; and we readily forget them 
as we remember the vast debt we owe to him. 
Whether or not we could have achieved success 
without him, it is certain that only through him we 
did achieve success. He was thoroughly patriotic, 
and his patriotism sprang from his faith in the 
American Union. He had been educated to the ser- 
vice of the government ; he had looked to this rather 
than to the parties that exist under it, whose zeal 
sometimes leads men to forget that there can be 
no party success worth having that is not for the 
benefit of all. His political affiliations were slight 
enough, perhaps, but they had not been with the 
party that elected Mr. Lincoln. He knew well, 
however, that this frame of government, once 
destroyed, could never be reconstructed. He had 
no faith in any theory which made the United 
States powerless to protect itself. He compre- 
hended fully the real reason why the slave States, 
dissatisfied with just and necessary restraint, sought 
to extricate themselves from the Union ; and he 
knew that a war commencing for its integrity 
would broaden and widen until it became one for 
the liberty of all men, and there was neither 
master nor slave in the land. His letter to his 
brother-in-law, lately published, although written 
during the first week of the war, his written 
remark to General Buckner, in their interesting 
interview just before he died, " that the war had 



164 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

been worth all that it had cost," show how 
strongly he felt that, purified by the fires of the 
Rebellion, the Union had risen grand and more 
august among nations. Who shall say he was not 
right ? Who shall say that if all the noble lives 
so freely offered could be restored, but with them 
must return the once discordant Union with its 
system of slavery, they who gave would consent 
to have them purchased back at such a price ? 

General Grant was not of those who supposed 
that the conflict with the South was to be any 
summer's day campaign ; he knew the position of 
the South, its resources, its military capacity, and 
the fact that, acting on the defensive, it would 
move its armies on interior lines. He recognized 
the difficulty in dealing with so vast an extent of 
territory ; and he knew that in a war with a 
hostile people rather than a hostile army only, we 
could often hold but the tracts of territory im- 
mediately under our camp-fires. Yet he never 
doubted of ultimate success. He never believed 
that this country was to be rent asunder by 
faction or dragged to its doom by traitors. He 
said to General Badeau once, who had asked him 
if the prospect never appalled him, that he had 
always felt perfectly certain of success. Thus 
though to him many days were dark and disas- 
trous, none were despondent. " The simple faith 
in success you have always manifested," said 
Sherman to him, " I can liken to nothing else than 
the faith a Christian has in the Saviour." His 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 165 

remarkable persistence has caused him sometimes 
to be looked on as a mere dogged fighter. No 
suggestion could be more preposterous. He felt 
sure of his plan before he commenced ; then 
temporary obstructions and difficulties did not 
dismay him, and whatever were the checks, he 
went on with resolution to the end. 

If stern and unyielding in the hour of conflict, 
in the hour of victory no man was ever more 
generous and magnanimous. He felt always that 
those with whom we warred were our erring 
countrymen, and that when they submitted to the 
inevitable changes that war had made, strife was 
at an end ; but he never proposed to yield or 
tamper with what had been won for liberty and 
humanity in that strife. 

He has passed beyond our mortal sight, — 
sustained and soothed by the devotion of friends 
and comrades, by the love of a people, by the 
affectionate respect and regard of many once in 
arms against him. In that home where he was 
almost worshipped, " he has wrapped the drapery 
of his couch about him " as one that lies down 
to pleasant dreams. Front to front on many 
a field he had met the grim destroyer where the 
death-dealing missiles rained thick and fast from 
the rattling rifles and the crashing cannon. He 
neither quailed nor blenched, although death came 
at last with a summons that could not be denied, 
when all that makes life dear was around him. 
He could not but know he was to live still in 



166 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

memory as long as the great flag around which 
his fighting legions rallied should wave above 
a united people. To most men the call of death 
is terrible ; 

" But to the hero when his sword has won 
The battle of the free, 
That voice sounds like a prophet's word, 
And in its hollow tones are heard 
The thanks of millions yet to be." 









COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS ON 
GENERAL GRANT. 

DELIVERED AT WORCESTER, AUGUST 8, 1885. 



Mr. Mayor, Fellow-citizens, — When we who 
were soldiers of the Army of the Potomac first 
saw General Grant, he was already illustrious. 
The great battles on the Cumberland and the Ten- 
nessee had been fought. Already the Missis- 
sippi rolled proudly to the sea ; no Rebel fortresses 
frowned from its banks, no Rebel squadrons cruised 
upon its waters. His great victory at Chatta- 
nooga had repaired the disaster of Chickamauga ; 
and the West seemed to be coming firmly within 
our grasp. 

Yet the war was pressing heavily, enormous 
debts were being contracted, thousands of brave 
men had fallen, and it was seen that thousands 
must yet fall before we could achieve the task we 
had undertaken. No wiser act was ever done by 
Congress than that which created for Grant the 
office of lieutenant-general, whose station might 
be with either army, as he might select, but whose 
control and direction were to be over all. His 
command over the armies operating west of the 
Alleghanies had already fully demonstrated his 



168 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

vast powers of combination, his capacity for the 
widest fields of strategy, as well as his terrific 
energy in battle. Then this new and great respon- 
sibility was placed upon him. " If I succeed," he 
said solemnly, as he received his commission from 
the hands of the President, " it will be due to our 
brave armies, and, above all, to the favor of that 
Providence which leads both nations and men." 

He had been urged in accepting this high com- 
mand to remain with the armies of the West. 
" Stay with us," said Sherman ; " let us make it 
dead sure ; " but in the hands of Sherman himself 
and Thomas, the West was " dead sure " already, 
and Grant knew that the time had come when he 
must more immediately measure himself " with 
the foremost army of the Confederacy led by its 
foremost man." He knew that to the great strug- 
gle between the armies of the Potomac and of 
Northern Virginia other operations, vast although 
they were, were subsidiary only. Two more tried,' 
determined, better armies the world had never 
seen. Battle, disease, defeat, had wasted both, vic- 
tory had rewarded both ; but for either to rout the 
other had been impossible. Each when it won 
had gained but a few miles, or it might be rods, of 
territory. Each as it drew off from a day of dis- 
aster drew off sternly in perfect order, and like 
"slow Ajax fighting still," retired. 

How complete General Grant's control was over 
every one of the armies of the United States 
from the day he took supreme command, the 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 169 

records of the War Department bear witness, — 
as complete in general direction over that with 
which Sherman marched to the sea. or that which 
Thomas directed to its splendid victory at Nash- 
ville as over the Army of the Potomac. No 
general could falter or hesitate for advice or di- 
rection which he was not ready to afford ; none 
needed encouragement or urging when he was not 
prepared to speak the words which the occasion 
demanded. Over the vast realm where the gigan- 
tic conflict was raging, that eagle eye ranged with 
far-seeing, watchful gaze, anxious that nothing, 
however small, should escape his care in that 
one determined purpose of crushing the Rebellion. 
While the great battle of the Wilderness was be- 
ing fought around him, he was sending despatches 
to Sherman, more than a thousand miles away, as 
to his campaign. 

That his military genius was vast and compre- 
hensive no one can question or deny. As a gen- 
eral he was thoroughly aggressive, alike from 
natural character and from the military position 
in which he was always placed. He felt deeply 
the suggestions sometimes made that he was hard 
and stern, that he sometimes risked the lives of 
his men needlessly. He knew well that from his 
constant attacks his losses must of necessity be 
greater than those of the army he opposed, but he 
believed that (the advantage of position in stand- 
ing on the defensive being always with the Rebel 
Army) the true way to close the war was to strike 



170 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

resolutely and hard, and that this was not in the 
long run to sacrifice, but to save life, although the 
immediate loss might be severe. No man ever felt 
more fully that the life of every soldier was his in 
solemn trust, and that it must not be wantonly 
imperilled. " I cannot do that," he once said to 
General Halleck, who had recommended a par- 
ticular attack ; " it might succeed, but it would 
cost the lives of more men than I have a right to 
risk for such an advantage." 

He is often spoken of as if there were some- 
thing mysterious about his character, as if there 
were some riddle to unravel. This is evidently an 
error ; no man had less desire to deceive others or 
less capacity to do it. He kept his own counsel, it 
is true. He worked out his plans carefully, but 
he was always ready to hear those who had any- 
thing worth hearing. He carefully watched the 
plans of those opposed to him, using every availa- 
ble means to enlighten himself. He thoughtfully 
sought to learn what was the best thing for an 
opponent to do, and assumed that he would do it. 
If his opponent did anything less than this, so 
much the worse for him. He had measured him- 
self in his career with every great general of the 
Confederacy ; he respected their abilities, but he 
had seen no reason to distrust his own. He had 
confidence in his own judgment, not from any silly 
or inflated vanity, but because he believed he had 
mastered the problems submitted to it. Nothing 
was ever done by him in any half-hearted way, or 






ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 171 

as if he felt that something better might have 
been attempted. 

No general ever lived more calmly resolute. 
He by no means despised the wisdom of those 
who have written upon the art of war, or the 
soundness of the more general principles which 
experience has prescribed. But he was no soldier 
of the book or the school, and he dared to violate 
their rules when great occasions demanded. Alone 
in the army that beleaguered Vicksburg, surrounded 
by chiefs who shrank from no danger through 
which courage could conduct them, he matured 
his final plan for its capture, knowing that any 
council of war would condemn it as too hazar- 
dous. Silent and self-contained, alone he deter- 
mined upon it, never flinching, never doubting 
from the time his plan had its first conception 
until its triumphant close ; he achieved the grand 
result by taking counsel of his own calm reflec- 
tion, his own indomitable will, his own daring 
heart. 

He was a thoroughly generous and just man in 
relation to the officers with whom he was associ- 
ated, to the armies he led, to the armies to which 
he was opposed. It is hard for a soldier to be 
generous in matters which concern his own glory 
and renown, j^et in regard to Fort Donelson and 
Shiloh he was so generous to his subordinates that 
his cordial words were used most unjustly to de- 
preciate his own reputation and to detract from 
his own merits. He could not leave the armies 



172 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

of the West without thanking them and their 
leaders for their devotion, and expressing to them 
how strongly he felt that all he had won for the 
country or gained for himself was due to them; 
yet he was not less just to the brave army to 
which he more immediately came. When the 
preparations for the last struggle in the spring of 
1865 were being completed, there was a profound 
anxiety on his part that the war should be ended 
at once, and that Lee and Johnston should neither 
unite nor escape. Yet when it was proposed to 
bring troops from the Western armies to add to 
the strength of the Army of the Potomac he op- 
posed it. He felt it to be unwise ; that jealousies 
would arise with the troops of the Army of the 
West, each claiming that the victorv was its own. 
He felt that it would not be generous to the Army 
of the Potomac. He had full confidence in its 
strength and courage to finish its work ; and he 
saw that it would not be just that any other arm} 7 
should divide with it its final triumph. How well 
and thoroughly that great army struck its final 
blow, Appomattox testifies ; and the surrender 
shows how generously Grant dealt with those who 
then laid down their arms. It was but in the line 
of the course he had pursued at Fort Donelson and 
Vicksburg. While he meant that the full fruits 
of the victory should be secured ; while he never 
faltered in his determination that the permanency 
of the government should be clearly vindicated ; 
while he never questioned that the States lately 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 173 

in rebellion could only be restored with every 
guaranty that the freedom of the race once en- 
slaved should be protected, — he would prescribe 
no conditions of surrender that could in any sense 
be deemed to be humiliating. 

We cannot to-day undertake to fix with accu- 
racy the character of our heroic leader by com- 
parison with others whom history has rendered 
immortal, yet there is one historical sketch that 
bears so many points of resemblance that I shall 
venture to quote it. It was with much interest a 
few months since that we celebrated the founding 
of this town two hundred years ago by three sol- 
diers (one an officer of rank), who had served 
under Cromwell, and who, perhaps, had seen him 
that morning when in the pouring rain in which 
the battle of Worcester began he rode down the 
line and bade his soldiers " trust in the Lord 
and keep their powder dry." The description 
which Macaulay gives of the great Puritan leader, 
whom our fathers loved and honored, finds its al- 
most perfect parallel in General Grant. It is in 
an altogether imaginary dialogue, assumed to 
have been between the Royalist poet Cowley and 
John Milton. I read the words as Milton is sup- 
posed to utter them, omitting but an unimportant 
fragment : — 

" Because he was an ungraceful orator, and never said 
either in public or private anything memorable, you will 
have it that he was of mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. 
Many men have there been ignorant of letters, without 



174 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

wit, without eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to devise 
and the courage to perform that which they lacked lan- 
guage to explain. Such men often have worked out the 
deliverance of nations and their own greatness, not by 
logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by 
calmness in danger, by firm and stubborn resolution in 
all adversity. The hearts of men are their books ; events 
are their tutors ; great actions are their eloquence ; and 
such a one in my judgment was his late Highness. . . . 
His own deeds shall avouch him for a great statesman, a 
great soldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful and 
generous conqueror." 

Fellow-citizens, it is a solemn day on which we 
part from all that was mortal in this illustrious 
man. If it be a day of mourning, it is one of 
thankfulness and gratitude also. If much is taken 
from us, it is because much was given to us. I 
contrast the noble and beautiful death of this 
patriot soldier with that of the mightiest con- 
queror Europe ever knew, and I bow in reverence 
before the great Controller of events, who has 
ordained that even in this world men are rewarded 
according to their works. 

There is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington 
the beautiful statue by Vela of Napoleon as he is 
dying at St. Helena. It is the saddest thing upon 
which my eyes have ever looked. The Emperor is 
sitting with his morning gown half wrapped around 
his naked breast, and on his lap lies outspread the 
map of Europe. The face, of wondrous beauty, is 
of unutterable grief. Wasted opportunities, dis- 
appointed ambition, remorse, have set upon it 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 175 

their ineffaceable seal. His wife is far away ; his 
only son a prisoner at the Austrian Court. Upon 
the throne of France, trampled as she is under the 
feet of the armies of Europe, sits again a Bourbon 
king, held there by foreign bayonets. The Emperor 
seems to recall the brave who have died by thou- 
sands, not that mankind might be nobler and better, 
but to minister to his thirst for dominion, his in- 
satiate passion for power. He seems to remember 
that by his own acts he has brought ruin upon the 
people who had loved him devotedly, and upon 
himself. In those last days, says his biographer, 
M. Thiers, he talked much of his old companions : 
" Shall I see them again, Desaix and Lannes, Murat 
and Ney ? " Ah, what comfort could there be in 
that ? — Lannes, who on the field of Essling, dying, 
had said to him, " Sire, you will ruin everything by 
these constant wars ; " or Murat and Ney, who for 
him had died deaths not altogether honorable to 
themselves, even if disgraceful to those who in- 
flicted them. Or what comfort to him to see 
again that splendid youth of France who had 
followed him from the sands of Egypt to the 
snows of Russia, the only reward of whose valor 
had been the destruction of their own liberty 
and country ? 

As we turn in sorrow from this scene which the 
cunning hand of the artist has made so lifelike, we 
behold that which has been enacted almost before 
our own bodily eyes. It is sixty-four years later ; 
and another sits in his chair to die. Upon him is 



176 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

the same mortal disease, although in a far more 
agonizing form. His face had never the Olympian 
beauty of the great Emperor ; it is marked now 
with the heavy lines that princely care and rugged 
war have impressed deep upon it, but it is grave 
and majestic still. The broad brow and heavy jaw 
tell alike of the calm thought and resolute will 
which show him fit to be among the kings of men. 
He has led great armies on fields as fiercely con- 
tested as Wagram or Austerlitz or Waterloo itself, 
and a million of men have sprung at his trumpet- 
call. He has ruled as constitutional magistrate 
over a realm broader and fairer than France 
itself. Life has to him been labor and duty, and 
until tongue and hand and brain refuse their office 
he labors still. Around him gathers everything 
that makes life beautiful and parting from it so 
hard; but there is no remorse, no thought of duties 
left undone to the country which in its sore need 
called to him, no obligations unfulfilled to those 
who had followed him to danger and to death. 
The only woman he has ever loved is there with 
tender hand to moisten the parched lips or wipe 
the gathering death-damp from his brow. Their 
children and grandchildren are at their feet. 
From a grateful country there has come up in 
a thousand forms the utterances of love and rever- 
ence. Those lately in arms against the cause he 
served have generously and tenderly united in each 
expression of feeling. He looks abroad over the 
country whose union he fought to preserve ; every- 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 177 

where there is peaee and prosperity ; no hostile 
armies trample the soil ; no hostile bayonets flash 
back the sun ; the war-drums long since are silent. 
The fields are already white with the harvest; the 
great gateways on the Atlantic and Pacific seas 
are open, and through them commerce pours its 
generous tide. Master and slave are known no 
longer in the land where labor is honored and 
manhood is revered. To him, too, in those dream- 
ing and waiting hours came the memories of those 
who have fallen in battle by his side, or, yielding 
since to the remorseless artillery of time, have 
gone before him. Even if he does not utter them, 
how well we may imagine the thoughts that pass 
through his mind as he feels that he draws near 
to them : " Shall I see them again, — McPherson, 
Reynolds, and Sedgwick, as they died at the head 
of their army corps; Rawlins, whom I loved as a 
brother ; Hooker, as when his cannon rang down 
from among the clouds on Lookout's crest; Thomas, 
as he triumphed at Nashville ; Meade, as he dashed 
back the fierce charge at Gettysburg or urged to 
the last dread struggle the ever-faithful Army of 
the Potomac ? If it be so, I know they will meet 
me as comrades and brothers. Nor those alone, 
not alone the great chiefs who urged forward the 
fiery onset of mighty battalions. Shall I see again 
the splendid youth of 1861 as they came in all the 
ardor of their generous patriotism, in all the fire 
of their splendid courage, to fill the ranks of our 
armies ? Shall I .see them as when through the 

12 



178 ADDRESS ON GENERAL GRANT. 

valleys the battle poured its awful tide, or as when 
the hills were made red by their glorious sacrifice? 
I am very near them now. Almost I can behold 
them, although the light on their faces is that 
which never was on sea or land. Almost I can 
hear their bugles call to me, as the notes softly 
rise and fall across the dark valley through which 
I must pass. I go to them ; and I know there 
is not one that will not meet me as a father and 
a friend." 

Farewell, pure and noble citizen, wise and gen- 
erous statesman, illustrious soldier ; farewell ! By 
these solemn rites which stretch from ocean to 
ocean, tenderly and tearfully and yet gratefully 
still, a nation surrenders back to God the great 
gift which he gave in her hour of utmost need. 



ADDRESS TO THE FIFTEENTH REGIMENT 
ASSOCIATION 

ON THEIR VISIT TO THE BATTLE-FIELD OF 
GETTYSBURG, JUNE, 1886. 



Comrades and Friends, — We have met, at a 
distance from our homes, on a great field ren- 
dered immortal forever by the victory won here 
for the Union of these States, and for the great 
principles of liberty and equality on which that 
Union must live or else have no life, to dedicate 
this monument to the memory of those of the Fif- 
teenth Massachusetts Regiment who fell in that 
terrible conflict. If such be the immediate object 
of this monument, it has also a wider scope, as in 
a large sense it commemorates all the brave men 
who nobly gave or bravely offered their lives, 
and testifies our own devotion to and faith in 
the great cause which demanded this solemn sacri- 
fice. Our gathering is in no sense ceremonial ; 
yet simple and informal as our words may be, we 
would willingly, as we stand above these glo- 
rious graves, say something that shall express, 
however inadequately, the gratitude we bear 
these men for their priceless services, and the 
love and honor in which we cherish their 
memory. So rapidly do the years move, thai in 



180 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

the near future the language of impartial history 
will speak in the Solemn and measured tones in 
which it has recorded its judgment upon brave 
men and "heroic souls long gone before us in 
the ages past. But although twenty-three years 
are gone since these hills rang with the echoes of the 
dread artillery, and these fields almost shook with 
the tramp of contending armies, to us these men 
must ever be what they were that day, — brothers 
and comrades, husbands, lovers, fathers, and sons. 
Everything that makes life sweet and beautiful 
gathers and entwines itself around their memory. 

The Fifteenth Regiment, mustered into the service 
in July, 1861, in Worcester, was the first of six 
regiments which were organized in that city for 
the suppression of the Rebellion. It was composed 
of Worcester County men almost entirely, and was 
the offering of ten towns in that county whose 
names in familiar conversation the companies fre- 
quently bore to the last in the regiment, as well 
as the letters which were their proper designation. 
I name them in the alphabetical order of their 
designation : A, Leominster ; B, Fitchburg ; C, 
Clinton ; D, Worcester ; E, Oxford ; F, Brook- 
field ; G, Grafton ; H, Northbridge ; I, Webster ; 
K, Blackstone. It was the only one of the regi- 
ments organized in the County of Worcester that 
participated in the battle of Gettysburg, although 
all the others were doing on other fields of the 
war valuable and faithful service. The battle of 
Gettysburg indicates the high-water mark of the 



THE 15ni REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 181 

Rebellion. Although many great battles were to 
be fought thereafter, many trials endured, many 
disasters encountered, yet its culminating poinl 
was here ; and it was here that the tide was 
turneds If the so-called Confederacy could es- 
tablish itself firmly on the soil of one of the 
Northern States, it would indicate to Europe that 
the Civil War was something more than a local 
rebellion, and might, perhaps, gain for the Con- 
federacy an admission into the family of nations 
by those who were covertly supporting it. Yicks- 
burg, it is true, was not yet taken ; but it could 
not be wrenched from the grasp of the iron hands 
which encompassed it. Yet the blow might be 
parried if a victory could be won for the Rebel- 
lion upon Northern soil. Whatever may have 
been, however, the motives and the hopes which 
induced the invasion of Pennsylvania by General 
Lee, here the3 r were destined to come to naught, 
here they were utterly blasted. 

In view, it may fairly be presumed, of the 
consequences of this great victory, of the fact 
that it was won upon the soil of one of the free 
States, and that this field is an appropriate 
memorial of the whole war, the State of Massa- 
chusetts on March 25, 1884, appropriated to each 
of its regiments and batteries here engaged a 
sufficient sum for a suitable monument to be 
erected on the battle-field. The work of the 
artist is before us, and it will be conceded that, 
if simple, it is yet graceful and appropriate. No 



182 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

State has proved more tenderly regardful of the 
children whom she sent forth to battle than our 
own Massachusetts. No troops ever went forth 
more carefully prepared, clothed, and equipped 
than those which were sent out under our war 
governor, John A. Andrew, whose name is never 
to be mentioned but with love and respect. Never 
were men watched over with more affectionate 
regard through those stormy days of trial. Since 
the war closed, no State has been more generous 
in supplementing the national bounty in behalf of 
our sick and wounded, oar decayed and broken 
men. It is to her that we owe the means of 
erecting this tribute to our fallen comrades, and 
for this we render to her to-day our grateful and 
cordial thanks. 

I shall not undertake here, my comrades, at any 
length to relate the deeds of the Fifteenth Massa- 
chusetts, or fully to describe this great battle in 
which it bore so creditable a part. The merest 
sketch must suffice. Before this conflict the regi- 
ment had won for itself an honorable, I might 
safely say an illustrious name, among the foremost 
and best-disciplined regiments of the army. There 
is a point with the bravest where organization loses 
its power, where losses are so severe and men are 
so utterly broken that discipline fails and can do 
nothing more ; and yet twice before in its history it 
had lost more than half its men, and, still unflinch- 
ing, it had drawn off the remnant resolutely and 
in good order. At its first battle, that of Ball's 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG'. 183 

Bluff, unfortunate though the day was, the regi- 
ment established a reputation for valor and for 
determined staying power which it never forfeited 
or lost ; but that reputation was won at the 
expense of many noble lives. It was in this 
engagement that General Ward, then lieutenant- 
colonel, was severely wounded. He was destined 
afterwards bravely to lose his life on this field 
of Gettysburg, and the dedication of his monu- 
ment will be a part of our solemn office to-day. 

The regiment made a campaign in February, 
18G2, in the Valley of Virginia, and then joined 
the forces of McClellan on the Peninsula. At 
Yorktown, having been assigned to the com- 
mand of a brigade by promotion, my own im- 
mediate connection with the regiment ceased, and 
Colonel Ward being utterly disabled, the active 
command passed for the time to the always 
brave and reliable Colonel Kimball. The regiment 
participated in all the conflicts of the Peninsula. 
I have re-read the reports of Generals Gorman. 
Sully, Howard, and Sedgwick. In different forms 
of expression each of those generals has said that 
better and braver troops no man ever led. It was 
in the same division with the Nineteenth and Twen- 
tieth Massachusetts Volunteers, who, it is just to 
say, received similar commendations. My own 
words are of little importance compared with 
those ; but in a report made by myself to Gov- 
ernor Andrew, December 20, 1862, principally as 
to the Seventh, Tenth, and Thirty-seventh Massa- 



184 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

chusetts regiments, then in my brigade, I spoke 
of the Fifteenth in language in which I believe as 
firmly now as when I wrote it : t( Called upon," 
I said, "both at Ball's Bluff and at Antietam, 
when it was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel 
(now Colonel) Kimball, to endure the terrific loss of 
more than one half of its men engaged, it exhibited 
a courage and fidelity more than worthy of vet- 
eran troops, for it was worthy of the holy cause 
which had drawn its men from their peaceful 
homes." 

At Antietam, when I was moving up with 
my brigade on the morning after the princi- 
pal battle, anticipating its renewal, my orderly. 
George W. Mirick, said to me, " General Sedg- 
wick is wounded, lying in a hut near the road." 
I jumped off my horse and ran in for a moment. 
After speaking of his wound, which, although 
it disabled him for the time, was not dangerous, 
General Sedgwick said to me, " Your old Fifteenth 
was magnificent yesterday ; no regiment of the 
regular army ever fought better." I thought 
he might well say this, when at a later period I 
learned that it had carried 606 officers and men 
into the battle, and that its list of casualties 
was 322 men, all but twenty-four of whom 
were accounted for by name as killed on the 
field or wounded. It certainly was a sufficient 
compliment when he says in his report that its 
" conduct was not different from what it was 
on all other occasions." 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 185 

The disastrous battle of Fredericksburg fol- 
lowed Antietam, and was followed by the not 
less unfortunate battle of Chancellorsville. In 
both these engagements the Fifteenth had a part 
worthy always of its reputation. It cannot be 
denied that their result was most sorely to 
depress the North ; and the hope to take ad- 
vantage of that depression was one of the motives 
for the campaign which General Lee now inaugu- 
rated. When the design of Lee was unmasked, 
General Hooker acted with great vigor, crossing 
the Potomac only one day later, and moving so 
rapidly as to threaten Lee's communications, and 
to interpose between him and his cavalry. As 
celerity of movement was then of the highest im- 
portance, it is worthy of note that the Fifteenth, 
together with the Nineteenth Massachusetts, re- 
ceived the tribute of an especial complimentary 
order for their vigorous and compact marching on 
the day when General Hooker crossed the river 
in pursuit. At Frederick, in Maryland, General 
Hooker was relieved from command, and General 
Meade substituted ; but the Potomac Army ad- 
vanced so vigorous!}' that General Lee fell back 
from the Susquehanna, anxious lest his line of re- 
treat should be barred. The first encounter took 
place to the north and west of Gettysburg, the 
battle being opened by Buford's cavalry, the 
First and Eleventh corps on our side being the 
only corps engaged ; and, outnumbered by the 
enemy, they were forced back to the crest on 



186 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

which we are now standing. The Fifteenth Regi- 
ment, whose fortunes we desire more immediately 
to follow, was in the Second Corps, Hancock's ; and 
proudly are its men entitled to wear the clover-leaf, 
which was the badge of that corps, for the good 
work of those days. Its division commander was 
General John Gibbon, and Colonel Ward was act- 
ing temporarily as brigade commander of the First 
Brigade, in which it served. General Hancock, 
who, without troops, had been sent forward 
to Gettysburg, had reported that the ground 
was favorable for a battle ; that it could be 
held until nightfall ; and orders had been at 
once issued for the concentration of the army at 
Gettysburg. 

The Fifteenth, on the night of July 1, bivouacked 
about three miles from the field, and moved for- 
ward on the morning of July 2, with the rest 
of the Second Corps, at daybreak, reaching the 
field about seven o'clock. The other brigades of 
the division were in line. The First Brigade (in 
which the Fifteenth served) was formed in the un- 
dulation, or hollow, behind the line indicated by 
the regimental monument, so that it might be 
readily moved to the aid of the other parts of 
the line in column of regiments. Colonel Ward, 
who had been relieved by the arrival of the 
brigade commander, now T took command of the 
regiment. He spoke briefly but spiritedly to the 
men, urged them to do their duty, and told them 
of the momentous issues involved in their hold- 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 1ST 

ing the ground firmly. It was not until about four 
o'clock that serious conflict took place, by a terrific 
attack upon the left of the Third Corps, which 
had been thrown forward to a more advanced 
position on the Emmitsburg road, which ran 
diagonally to the front of our general line. 
The line of the Third Corps, commanded by 
General Sickles, extended along that road by the 
peach orchard, then turned back to the foot of 
Round Top. Its right rested on the Emmitsburg 
road in echelon, some 550 yards in advance of 
the line of the Second Corps. To protect his 
own left and the right of General Sickles' corps, 
and to fill the gap, General Hancock ordered two 
regiments to be advanced to the Emmitsburg 
road north of the Codori House. The Fifteenth 
Massachusetts, Colonel Ward, and the Eighty-sec- 
ond New York, Lieutenant-Colonel Huston, were 
ordered to move forward, which they immediately 
did, forming along the road, the Fifteenth being on 
the right and the Eighty-second on the left. Their 
line did not immediately connect with the extreme 
right of the Third Corps, but was some two hundred 
yards from it, nor with the extreme left of the 
Second Corps, but was partially in front of it. 

The attack, which had commenced at the extreme 
left of the Third Corps and at the peach orchard, 
gradually extended to its right until the whole line 
of the corps was engaged ; and it was nearly seven 
o'clock in the evening before the storm fell upon 
the Fifteenth and Eighty-second. The extreme 



188 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

right of the Third Corps was now attacked by Barks- 
dale's, Wilson's, and Perry's Confederate brigades, 
and forced gradually back, thus uncovering the left 
of the line of the two regiments whose actions we 
are following. Wright's Georgia brigade now ad- 
vanced, and would have struck or swept around the 
right flank of the Third Corps but that it was en- 
countered by these regiments. The engagement was 
desperate ; from their advanced position the two 
regiments were to some extent under the fire of our 
own men as much as that of the enemy. The Eighty- 
second, whose left was now wholly uncovered, was 
first forced back, and the whole weight of the assault 
fell upon the Fifteenth. It was necessary to retire to 
the line of the Second Corps, and thither it fought 
its way back. But the two regiments had done 
their work well in protecting the flank of their 
own corps, for as the enemy followed closely, they 
were handsomely repulsed by the Second Brigade of 
their division, and by a portion of the Thirteenth 
Vermont, which had just reached that part of the 
field. In this fearful conflict we had to mourn the 
loss of many brave officers and men, among them 
Colonel Ward, who, gallantly righting as his regi- 
ment steadily retreated, received the mortal wound 
of which, a few hours later, he died. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Huston was mortally wounded. But if 
terrible blows had been received, they had been most 
terribly returned. The Georgia brigade of Wright 
had left on the field either killed or seriously and per- 
haps mortally wounded three of their regimental 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 189 

commanders. — Colonel Warden of the Twenty- 
second Georgia, Major Ross, commanding the Sec- 
ond Georgia, and Colonel Gibson, commanding the 
Forty-eighth Georgia ; and its loss in subordinate 
officers and men was proportionately heavy. 

I have spoken somewhat fully of the conduct of 
the Fifteenth on the second day of July, for, from 
the isolated position which it and its companion 
regiment occupied, they rendered a peculiar, dan- 
gerous, and most gallant service. 

Notwithstanding the forcing- back of the Third 
Corps, the 2d of July had, taken as a whole, closed 
successfully for our army. Round Top, which pro- 
tected our left, was now so firmly held that it could 
not be torn from us ; and on our extreme right at 
Culp's Hill, although some advantage had been 
gained by the Confederates, it was clear that all 
they had obtained could be taken from them, as it 
was. indeed, on the next morning. 

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon of the 
3d of July when the preparations for the terrific 
assault, intended to break the centre of our line 
and drive in confusion its two separate fragments 
on two distinct lines of retreat, began, by one of 
the most terrific cannonades ever known. The Con- 
federate Army was especially strong that day in 
artillery; and General Lee was able to concentrate 
for this attack one hundred and fifty guns. For 
some two hours the fire of these guns was directed 
upon the centre which it was intended to break. 
Sheltering themselves as far as possible by such 



190 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

rude breastworks as they had been able to make, 
our troops, whom the artillery fire was intended to 
demoralize, awaited the struggle which was certain 
to come when the enemy's infantry moved. The 
position in which the Fifteenth Massachusetts, 
now under command of Colonel Joslin, lay during 
this tempest of shot and shell was some twenty- 
five to fifty rods to the left of the monument. 
Hancock knew that somewhere on the Second 
Corps the weight of the assault was sure to fall, 
and as he rode along the line, roused his men 
by inspiring words and his own gallant bearing. 

It is about three o'clock, and the Confederate fire 
slackens, so that their infantry may move out of 
the woods that have partially sheltered them. They 
are coming now, in numbers nearly or quite 
eighteen thousand men. Longstreet has organized 
the assault ; but Pickett's division of Virginians is 
to lead. It contains about five thousand or six 
thousand men who have not yet fought in the bat- 
tle, and is supported on the right and left by divi- 
sions from other corps of their army. It is a relief 
to see them come, for, fierce as the encounter must 
be, the recumbent position of our men under the 
blazing July sun is intolerable, and they spring to 
their feet with alacrity. The enemy has formed 
for the attack in two lines, which, as they move, 
contract their front, and their lines are doubled or 
trebled by reason of the difficulties and obstructions 
on the march, thus having the appearance and to 
some extent the formation of columns, as they are 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 191 

generally termed. They are severely handled by 
our artillery, but they come steadily on. 

The assault was directed at first precisely to- 
wards the point in our line where the brigade was 
posted in which the Fifteenth served ; but more 
lately, as it advanced, it was deflected to our right, 
perhaps because the clump of trees afforded them a 
prominent landmark, or because the fire of Stan- 
nard's Vermont brigade, which was now thrown 
forward on the right flank of the enemy, caused 
the change of direction. 

The Fifteenth Massachusetts, with other regi- 
ments of the brigade following it, promptly moves 
towards its own right to encounter the attack, 
when it is about to strike on the line of the 
Second Corps. In this movement many of our 
men fall, notably Captain Jorgensen, and, a little 
later, Captain Murkland. As the Fifteenth Regi- 
ment reaches the clump of trees, the enemy, break- 
ing through the line of General Webb, which is 
marked by a low stone wall, for a moment fairly 
presses the Union line back. It is the last effort 
of desperation ; the assaulting lines or columns 
can do no more. There is a moment's pause, 
but the point penetrated by the enemy is in- 
stantly covered ; and as if by common consent 
the order " Forward " is given, and our men reso- 
lutely advance upon the foe. " The first time I 
heard the order, ' Advance the colors ! ' ' says Cap- 
tain Hastings of the Fifteenth, " was from Corporal 
Cunningham, although it was only the repetition 



192 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

of the order given by Colonel Joslin." The order 
is uttered and repeated from man to man, as 
well as from general and colonel along the line. 
No one can say who gave it first. There is some 
confusion, for in the rapid movements and the 
heavy fire, organization is to some extent lost, 
but all know what is to be done, and are resolute 
to do it. Firmly on now comes the whole Union 
front. Officers, if they cannot always direct by 
their commands, animate by their example. For a 
few moments the contest is most furious, but such 
a struggle is too desperate to endure long. The 
Confederate lines waver, yield, break at last, while 
many of their men throw down their muskets and 
throw up their hands in surrender. A few wild, 
disordered bands strive to fall back to the Confed- 
erate lines, from which they had issued so bravely 
an hour or two before ; and the Army of the Poto- 
mac, as it gathers up the straggling prisoners by 
thousands, knows that by its steady valor a great 
victory has been won for the Union. 

In this conflict our regiment had its full share 
alike of the danger and the glory, for both on the 
2d and the 3d of July it was at the points where 
the fiercest fighting was done and where the victory 
was finally secured. Depleted by its former en- 
gagements, the Fifteenth brought into the battle 
only eighteen officers and two hundred and twenty- 
one men. It lost three officers and nineteen en- 
listed men killed on the field, and eight officers 
and eighty-five men wounded (of whom many after- 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 103 

wards died), — in round numbers, one half of those 
who were engaged. Tested in a merely material 
point of view. Gettysburg was one of the great 
battles of the world. While the loss in our own 
regiment was fifty per cent., throughout our whole 
army it was probably from twenty-five to thirty 
per cent. In the Confederate Army it was without 
doubt larger, as it had been the attacking force. 
But, dreadful as the story is when we remember 
that the killed, wounded, and prisoners of the 
Federal Army numbered twenty-three thousand 
men, who shall say, as we reflect how much was 
done here for freedom and law and good govern- 
ment throughout not only our country, but the 
world, that the victory won here was not worth 
even the noble lives it cost ? 

"The spot is holy where they fought, 
And holy where they fell; 
For by their blood the land was bought, 
That land they loved so well." 

I will not undertake to follow further the history 
of the Fifteenth Regiment except by a single 
sentence. It fought in all the battles of the Army 
of the Potomac that followed in 1863. It was 
in the great battles of the Wilderness, Spott- 
sylvania, and Cold Harbor, with which the year 
1864 opened. Sadly depleted in its ranks, it was 
never false to its reputation ; and, its full term of 
service completed, it was mustered out in July of 
that year at Worcester with only one hundred 
and fifty men. As its colonel I had carried from 

l:; 



194 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

Worcester, in 1861, 1,065 men, and it had received 
about seven hundred recruits. Its men who were 
killed on the field, or died of wounds and disease 
during its term of service, were 364. This does 
not include, of course, those who were discharged 
for wounds or disability, many of whom returned 
home only to die. Tried by this terrible and 
bloody test, its place is among the most gallant 
regiments of the Union Army during the entire 
war. From an article published in the " National 
Tribune" of this year, by Mr. B. F. Gilman, for- 
merly of the Thirty-second Massachusetts, it ap- 
pears that in percentage of its losses the Fifteenth 
stands fourth among those who served in the 
armies of the Union. I have not the means of 
verifying the accuracy of Mr. Gilman's statement. 
I am able to state, however, from my own exami- 
nation in the records of the adjutant-general's 
office of Massachusetts, that its proportional loss of 
men who died during its term of service, having 
regard to the number of men borne upon its rolls, 
is larger than that of any of the regiments that 
went from our commonwealth. Its actual losses 
were greater than those of any other regiment 
except the Twentieth Massachusetts. But that 
gallant regiment was in the service eight months 
longer, and had upon its rolls more than half as 
many again men, in all 3,030 men. Massachusetts 
sent to the war sixty gallant regiments, all of 
whom did honor to the State, whose children they 
were, and to the cause which they served. To have 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 195 

gained such a place among them as that won by 
the Fifteenth is surely a sufficient eulogy. 

How shall I speak, my friends and comrades, of 
these men, when I remember that it was my duty 
to command them during nearly a year, and to lead 
them in the first of the many bloody battles in 
which they fought ? Certainly no better or braver 
men ever went forth in obedience to the solemn 
call of country. They were the young farmers. 
mechanics, and business men of our County of 
Worcester, — men who thought and felt as freemen. 
Before them lay the path of duty ; they could take 
no other road ; they were animated by no hope of 
aggrandizement, for most of them left behind far 
more lucrative positions ; they were stimulated by 
no hope of bounties ; they were excited by no fires 
of personal ambition ; they were inflamed by no 
wild enthusiasm. Calm and deliberate reflection 
had told them that it was by their hands, and by 
the hands of men such as they, that the Union must 
be defended. They were not kinless men, — waifs 
of society, such as float on the surface of the tur- 
bulent waters of great towns and cities ; around 
them were all the most sacred ties which bind us 
to life. Yet they laid these aside to answer the 
call of country. They were such men as make 
the heart and bone and sinew of our nation ; they 
embraced all that was noblest and purest in its 
young life. When shall their glory fade ? N< »t 
surely while the great flag that they followed 
waves above a free and united country. All who 



19G THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

led this regiment in battle that now are living are 
here to-day. I am sure I speak for all when I say 
that I wish we could have led and served it better. 

The monument we have reared to them is not a 
monument to the glories of war. If that were all, 
it were better that the State of Massachusetts had 
withheld its gift and that this granite block was 
sleeping in its native quarry. No one knows better 
than we who have seen the trampled fields, the 
desolated homes, the blazing towns, the agonies of 
the dying on such a field as this (less happy than 
the dead, who are past all pain), what the horrors 
of war are. A war can only be justified or en- 
nobled by a great and solemn cause ; and that cause 
the American people had. It is the noble spirit 
and the high resolve that their government should 
not be destroyed, that freedom should prevail 
wherever their flag; floated, which we seek to 
commemorate. Patriotic self-devotion, unflinching 
loyalty to duty, — these we would honor, these we 
would hold up to the reverence and imitation of 
those who are to come hereafter, whether he who 
displayed those great qualities fell with the stars of 
the general, or the eagles of the colonel, on his 
shoulder, or in the simple jacket of the private 
soldier. 

This memorial is reared in no spirit of hostility 
towards, or exultation over, the defeated in our late 
civil war. Let the passions it engendered pass 
away with the dreadful source from which it 
sprung. Even though the baffled and beaten 



THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 197 

traitor, around whom gather all the* infamies and 
horrors by which a wretched cause was rendered 
even more wicked, may still continue with feeble 
utterances to cry out that the cause is not dead, — 
secession and slavery are in their dishonorable 
graves together. The hand of a merciful Provi- 
deuce will extend to them no resurrection ; but 
the recollections of the grand results which our 
brethren achieved, and the heroism with which 
they achieved them, cannot be allowed to pass 
away. Over the unfortunate and erring with 
whom they contended let the long grass wave 
undisturbed. Yet as we stand by these glorious 
graves, we cannot confound the heroes and mar- 
tyrs of a noble cause with those whom the twin 
furies of treason and slavery led forth to battle, 
unless by a confusion of ideas worthy of chaos 
itself. It is the cause which sets our brethren 
apart among the myriads who people the silent 
cities of the dead. We should not be true to their 
just fame if in any sickly sentimental gush of 
reconciliation we should hesitate to assert that the 
principles for which they died were right, and 
that those against which they fought were deeply 
wrong. That assertion, in no sense unkind or 
ungenerous to those with whom they were once in 
deadly strife, this monument makes to-day. It 
tells of bravery and valor ; but it tells of more 
than these, for it tells of duty and patriotism, and 
it summons all who may look upon it hereafter 
to answer to their call. 



198 THE 15th REGIMENT AND GETTYSBURG. 

We dedicate this monument, then, the gift of 
Massachusetts, to the memory of the dead of our 
Fifteenth Regiment, who fell on this immortal field, 
and in the various conflicts in which the regiment 
fought, to the memory of those who served in it 
and nobly offered their lives for their country, as 
they have passed, or shall hereafter pass away, 
and to the memory of their brave comrades of the 
whole Federal Army. We dedicate it to the great 
cause of the Union and the freedom of all who 
dwell beneath the flag, which is the emblem of its 
sovereignty, in the solemn trust that " government 
of the people, by the people and for the people," 
shall not perish from among men. 






ADDRESS 

AS PRESIDENT OF THE ALUMNI AT THE DINNER IN 
MEMORIAL HALL ON THE TWO HUNDRED AND 
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF 
HARVARD COLLEGE, NOVEMBER 8, 1886. 



Brethren, — Our solemn festival draws to its 
close. For a few moments we linger still to inter- 
change our mutual sentiments and feelings, and 
then to part until the three hundredth anniversary 
summons the sons of Harvard to unite upon a 
similar occasion. A few may expect to see that 
distant clay, but most of us know that for us it is 
impossible. But whether we are to join in it or 
not, those who shall then commemorate are to be 
our brethren, united by that bond of fraternity 
whose mystic chords draw together all who have 
drunk at this fountain. Their voices as our own, 
when they meet and when they part, will utter 
their salutation to our beloved University, " Salve, 
magna Parens ! " 

It is well in this time of prosperity, when Mas- 
sachusetts is a wealthy and powerful State, and 
yet but a portion of a mighty nation whose gate- 
ways are on the Atlantic and the Pacific seas, to 
look back to the day when this college was founded, 
and to the men who made that day great. It was 



200 ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 

six years only since they had reached these shores. 
They had contended with the inhospitable cli- 
mate ; the stern soil they had encountered but 
not subdued. Their settlements were but a fringe 
alono- a stormy sea which separated them from the 
land they had loved so well, and had parted from 
in obedience to a higher call than that of country, 
to build here their New Jerusalem. Not sustained 
by any royal favor or power ; not disturbed as yet 
except it might be by a royal frown ; exercising 
boldly the powers of sovereignty even if in nom- 
inal obedience to their parent State ; fixing defi- 
nitely the status of citizens ; imposing taxes and 
duties ; determining what should be public charges, 
— that nothing might be wanting to a full and 
perfect commonwealth, they established this col- 
lege, endowing it with the magnificent gift equal 
to a year's revenue. 

One great principle they contributed to the sci- 
ence of government, — and the greatest of States 
and statesmen might well be proud of the contri- 
bution. That the education of the people is a 
public duty ; that there is a right in every child 
and youth in the land to its rudiments, and to the 
opportunity for a larger and more liberal culture ; 
that the provision for this is a legitimate public 
expenditure, — are principles of the gravest im- 
portance ; and for these the world is indebted to 
them. The monuments to their own just fame 
which they reared by the establishment of this 
college, and by their provision for public schools, 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNL 201 

are not to be found alone in these halls, or in those 
where similar institutions teach the higher branches 
of learning and science, but equally in the hum- 
blest village schoolhouse, wherever in the broad 
land it nestles in the valley or by the wayside. 

In marshalling the degrees of honor, Lord Bacon 
has assigned the highest place to the conditores 
imperiorum, or founders of States. With other 
peoples it has been pleasant to invest them with 
the colors of poetry and romance. It is to the 
immortal gods that Romulus traces his ancestry ; 
and the shadowy Arthur who leads the line of 
Britain's kings is the poetic type of piety, truth, 
and courage. But the founders of New England 
we know as they were ; nor is there anv danger 
in an age that differs so widely from that in which 
they lived that their defects will not be pointed 
out and their shortcomings clearly exposed. These 
men are revealed to us alike by their acts and their 
own written words. Learned beyond any body of 
men who ever went forth to tempt the fortunes of 
a new world, their habit of self-inspection, and. 
above all, that of bearing true witness, give them 
to us in their diaries and their notebooks as the}'' 
were. We see them in their weakness and their 
strength. In that which they came to do, they 
were thoroughly in earnest. In the path they had 
marked out they intended to walk; those who 
would walk with them were welcome ; for others 
they had no place. If success was theirs, the}' were 
willing to ascribe all the glory to God ; but they 



202 ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 

knew that in these latter days he works by human 
means and human agencies, and that it was for 
them to seek to compass all for which they prayed. 
They believed in the sword of the Lord and of 
Gideon ; but the sword of Gideon was the good 
weapon that hung in their own belts, and whose 
hilt was within the grasp of their own strong 
right hands. They looked for no miracles to be 
wrought : the ground must be tilled if it was to 
bring forth bread ; the forest must be felled if there 
were to be fields and pastures ; the sea must be 
vexed by their lines and nets if they would eat of 
its fish. They had brought with them an edu- 
cated clergy trained in the great English univer- 
sities : they did not propose to be separated from 
the instructions of its knowledge and culture ; 
unless these could grow and increase as wealth 
and numbers came to them, they that builded the 
city would have builded it in vain. " Learning," to 
use their own fine expression, was not " to be 
buried in the graves of the fathers." 

As they sat together in the rude chamber where 
the General Court met, November 7, 1636, could 
we have looked upon them, they would have 
seemed to our eyes plain in dress and manners 
and stern in aspect, for the responsibilities upon 
them were heavy and solemn ; yet we should have 
seen also how high resolve, earnest purpose, de- 
voted faith, dignified and ennobled their grave and 
manly features. Henry Vane was there, — 

" Vane young in years, yet in sage counsel old," 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 203 

as Milton has written of him ; Hugh Peters was 
there ; both afterwards to die upon the scaffold for 
their stern assertion of the liberties of England. 
John Winthrop was there, and without question, 
as he is always seen in our Annals, sweet and 
calm, wise and brave. Of all that was there said 
nothing is preserved ; neither diary, memoran- 
dum, nor notebook yield a word, although care- 
fully and lovingly searched. What they did the 
record tells. Yet the illustrious orator who stood 
fifty years ago where I most unworthily stand 
to-day, imagined in words well befitting the occa- 
sion the speech which John Winthrop might have 
made ; and we join in the aspiration with which it 
concludes : " So long as New England or .America 
hath a name on the earth's surface, the fame and 
the fruit of this day's work shall be blessed." 

These men were in many respects, certainly in 
lofty conception, above the age in which they 
lived : nowhere can it be said that they fell below 
it. Yet neither they nor any body of men ever 
burst through the environment of the temper and 
thought of the age in which their lot was cast. 
If they were intolerant of other modes of belief, 
this was the result of their peculiar political situ- 
ation rather than of indifference to the rights of 
others. When power fully came to them, as it 
did come in England, the belief of others was 
respected. Every sect in its weakness counsels 
toleration; but Mr. Hume, one of the bitterest 
of their critics, says of them : " Of all Christian 



204 ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 

sects, this was the first which during its pros- 
perity as well as its adversity always adopted 
the principle of toleration." 

Certainly this college bears no marks of intoler- 
ance, if that charge can rightfully be brought 
elsewhere against the founders of New England. 
Established primarily for theological instruction ; 
he whose name it bears, and whose gift made its 
existence possible, a clergyman ; controlled by the 
ministry at a time when in all the affairs of the 
colony their influence was little less than para- 
mount, — the liberal spirit of each charter and 
constitution it has received has been such that its 
advantages and privileges have been at the dis- 
posal of all, irrespective of differences of belief. Let 
every one that thirsteth come and drink freely. 
No creed was ever to be signed, no form of faith 
professed, no catechism answered by student or 
professor. In reverent faith its founders enter- 
tained the then prevalent doctrines of the Protes- 
tant Church. Their difference with the Anglican 
Church had been one of ritual and discipline rather 
than of doctrine. They must have understood how 
large an instrument of authority and influence a 
great seat of learning is in its sway over opinion, 
but they did not seek to control it by any formulas 
which should bind the consciences of those who 
resorted to it. 

The quarter of a millennium which has elapsed 
since the foundation of our college carries us back 
even more than is indicated merely by the number 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 205 

of its years. It marks the dawn of the present era 
in literature and science. Shakespeare and IJacon 
were but a few. years dead ; Milton was yet in his 
youth ; Newton was still to come. With all the ad- 
vance of what may be called modern Europe our 
University is identified, and steadily it must adapt 
itself in its high office of instruction to the wants of 
each generation and its growing needs. Firmly 
fixed, it stands upon the rocks; but the guidance 
which it shall give to those who look for its light 
must be such as they can follow through every 
channel that learning or science may hereafter dis- 
cover. The control which its Alumni have by 
electing its overseers imposes on us the duty of 
ultimately determining what changes shall from 
time to time be made, and how it shall best fulfil 
its great office. It is a grave and solemn trust, to 
be administered in reverent gratitude to those who 
have gone before us, whose labors we have enjoyed. 
and in the earnest wish that those who may follow 
us may reap an abundant harvest from the seed we 
shall sow. Proportions vary ; relations change. 
The mighty march which has been made in phy- 
sical science; the carefully guarded secrets which 
Nature, pursued and tortured in a thousand ways. 
has been compelled to reveal ; the powers and 
forces which have been discovered and applied to 
the service of man, — have changed the relative 
position which the arts and sciences must here- 
after occupy in any system of general education. 
The literature of modern Europe, including that 



206 ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 

of our own English tongue, to which our own 
countrymen have contributed much, could not be 
said to have had an existence on the day when 
our college was founded. It necessarily demands 
and must receive a larger place, as it embodies 
what is best and noblest in modern thought. Yet 
it does not follow that our obligation to that of 
the classic ages is to be denied or disowned. Nor 
need we feel that what has clone so much to dignify 
and elevate the life of man will lose its genial in- 
fluence, that the language immortalized by "Tully's 
voice and Virgil's lay and Livy's pictured page " is 
to be forgotten, or that the mighty instrument of 
thought and speech with which Demosthenes ful- 
mined over Greece is to be cast aside as broken 
and useless. 

But whatever changes are to come to our 
University, its faithful spirit in the culture of 
knowledge is not to change ; nor will it ever 
be discouraged in the attempt to establish the 
foundations of that noble and hisrti character 
which makes useful men able in their own per- 
sons to exhibit exalted lives. Apart from all 
direct instruction, religious or moral, there should 
be an atmosphere which shall impart to those 
around whom it flows an inspiration to be worthy 
and true. In the theocracy of the Puritans, those 
educated here were to be its churchmen, statesmen, 
and leaders of its people. All this is changed ; 
but it does not therefore follow that leaders are 
no longer to exist. We have passed out from the 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 207 

age of authority, but the foundations upon which 
authority should rightfully exist are not therefore 
destroyed. There was never a time when philan- 
thropic effort met a more generous response, when 
wise and mature thought met higher appreciation, 
when carefully considered utterance found larger 
audience, or when educated men ready to perform 
the great duties of life could render more efficient 
service. That this University has fulfilled in a 
large measure the hopes of its founders in the 
broad and general aspects in which its anticipated 
benefits were presented to their minds, we would 
willingly believe. The list of its scholars, of its 
lovers of polite literature, of its teachers, its scien- 
tists, its statesmen, bears honored and illustrious 
names. But it is not upon these alone that its fame 
is to rest. Even if it has been said of the majority 
of men, " They will have perished as though they 
had never been, and will become as though they 
had never been born," this, when spoken of brave 
and faithful men, such as this college has sent forth 
by hundreds and even thousands, is far from true. 
Our vision is weak and narrow : it is only when 
service is marked and peculiar that to our eyes it 
becomes apparent. The village Hampdens, " the 
mute, inglorious" Miltons, do not perish as if they 
had never been. The professional men, who in 
their clay have served the communities in which 
they dwelt — the schoolmaster, the physician, the 
clergyman, who have not only taught but led the 
way to a higher life — have found here their 



208 ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 

moral and intellectual training. Those who have 
found in commerce or its kindred pursuits their 
appropriate sphere, or those so placed by fortune 
that it has not been necessary to pursue the gain- 
ful callings of life, have been made here men of 
feeling and culture, dignifying and elevating the 
world around them. Men like these mould, edu- 
cate, and control society. They do not look that 
any laurel wreath of fame shall adorn their brows ; 
it is enough for them that they are brave and 
steadfast soldiers in the great army by whose 
fidelity and courage the world advances. 

Nor in the great crises of the nation has it been 
found heretofore that this college has been unworthy 
of its high purpose. In the struggles by which the 
English people fought their own way to civil and 
religious liberty, in the great debate which pre- 
ceded the conflict of arms with Great Britain 
herself, the men educated here were ever promi- 
nent. All the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence from Massachusetts were its children. 
Nor in the great struggle for national life which 
came to our own generation were its sons wanting. 
Certainly, standing in this Hall which pious care 
has reared to their memory, I cannot forget the 
young, the beautiful, the brave, who nobly perilled 
or who nobly surrendered life in that terrible con- 
flict. A subject race has been rescued from bon- 
dage ; a nation has been lifted from the thraldom 
to which itself had been condemned by its own 
toleration ; and the integrity of the Union has been 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 209 

established forever. Such a cause has consecrated 
those who have died in its defence. 

By these festival rites we surrender to the cen- 
tury that is to follow this University. Adorned, 
improved, and with greater capacity for the noble 
work of education, it certainly is ; nor will we for- 
get the noble spirit by which its founders were 
actuated. It is not necessary to accept the reli- 
gious dogmas of the Puritans, or to attach the 
importance they did to propositions in theology ; 
but we must admire their spirit of self-sacrifice, 
their sincere desire to elevate their own lives by 
a faith which lifted them above all that was icrno- 
ble in the present, and gilded with a divine light 
all that was sordid around them. Far below their 
lofty ideal standards they fell, no doubt, yet these 
were ever above them. Wealth, rank, worldly suc- 
cess, were nothing ; where truth led the way they 
were to follow ; what duty commanded, that they 
were to do. To them much that we see around us 
would appear strange ; these splendid edifices, these 

"storied windows richly dight, 
Casting their dim, religious light," 

would seem at variance with the simplicity they 
loved ; but we will not doubt our communion with 
them so long as we are loyal to truth and duty. 
Nor, if thus faithful, will we doubt that the calm 
scholar whose figure, moulded by a skilful hand, 
sits in perennial youth at our portals, were he to 
come again in bodily presence, would fail to recog- 

14 



210 ADDRESS BEFORE THE HARVARD ALUMNI. 

nize us as tlie children for whom his bounty was 
intended. 

The structure that has been reared here contains 
in itself all the elements of growth and perma- 
nence. In each age, those who are to follow us 
shall repair, restore, and renew it as wisdom and 
knowledge shall instruct them. The sands of the 
desert are piled high above the monuments which 
Egyptian kings have reared to commemorate their 
conquests and their renown ; those of graceful and 
artistic Greece, and of mighty Rome, crumble and 
fall into the dust, — but if their sons are faithful, 
against this edifice of our fathers the waves of time 
shall beat in vain. No creeping ivy shall throw 
out its green and flaunting banner from ruined 
battlements; but above its towers, strengthened 
by the noblest thought of each coming age, shall 
float forever our simple word, " Veritas." 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION 

IN MEMORY OF GENERAL SHERIDAN, 
NOVEMBER 7, 1888. 



Mr. Commander and Companions, — As we 
gather at our first autumnal meeting, there is a 
shadow thrown over it by the reflection that since 
we last assembled we have been called to part 
with the illustrious soldier who was the head of 
our national organization. In obedience to the di- 
rection of our Commander, I rise to speak some 
words, inadequate although they must be, of him, 
and of the love and honor in which we held him. 

If the hour of friendly intercourse, when hand 
clasps hand in affectionate recognition, is saddened, 
it is dignified also by the remembrance of what Gen- 
eral Sheridan has been to the country of which we, in 
our more humble capacity, as well as he, have been 
soldiers. We would recall him to-night not in 
sorrow only, but in honor, in gratitude for what 
we have received, not less than in regret for what 
we have lost. He is but a little in advance on the 
path we all must travel, as the great historic 
events in which we have been actors pass into 
history. It is agreeable to remember that he was 
the guest of this Commandery for a few clays dur- 



212 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

ing the past winter, when each one of us enjoyed 
his cordial greeting. His life ebbed away, too, on 
the shores of the southern bay of Massachusetts, 
where he had made his summer, home ; and it was 
the sad privilege of some of our companions to aid 
in bearing his remains to the train which was to 
conduct them to our national capital, there to rest 
forever anions: those who have offered their lives 
for the Republic. 

The occasion is not adapted for an elaborate 
address ; yet you will pardon me if I briefly touch 
on some of the events in the career of General 
Sheridan, for of him it may properly be said that 
his deeds are his eulogy. 

Born at Somerset, in Ohio, on March 6, 1831, he 
graduated from West Point in the class of 1853. 
He was a captain in the Thirteenth Infantry at 
the beginning of the war, and for more than a 
year thereafter rendered staff duty, which, if val- 
uable, called for ability of quite a different order 
from that which he subsequently displayed. It 
was not until the 27th of May, 1862, that he re- 
ceived an appointment as colonel of the Second 
Michigan Cavalry. This gave him the first oppor- 
tunity for the display of his abilities in the field, and 
they were not long concealed. Joining, with his 
regiment, in the operations which accompanied the 
evacuation of Corinth, his dash, vigor, and judg- 
ment were at once recognized. On the 1st of July, 
in command, as colonel, of a brigade of cavalry, 
composed of but two regiments (one his own), at 



ADDRESS OX GENERAL SHERIDAN. 213 

Booneville, in Mississippi, some twenty miles in 
front of our main army, he was attacked by Gen- 
eral Chalmers, with a force of some five or six 
thousand men, — at least three times his own 
number. This little battle, now almost forgotten, 
when so many larger conflicts arrest the attention. 
was one of the most remarkable in the war, for it 
ended not only in his beating off the enemy, but 
in putting him to utter rout. Here he won his 
first star, and his commission as brigadier. Were 
there time to recall the details of it, you would 
recognize how fully it shows the characteristics he 
afterwards exhibited on larger fields. As a general 
he was essentially aggressive. If compelled to 
fight, having inferior numbers to his adversary, 
he yet held it was better to attack than to wait 
the attack of the enemy. Self-confident, but in no 
vain-glorious way, naturally sanguine and full of 
resources, his fiery and almost audacious courage 
suggested to him plans which might have seemed 
rash, but that his vigor in execution demonstrated 
that they could be successfully carried out. He 
said, in conversation here last winter, " Some gen- 
erals, and pretty good ones too, fight a battle so 
that they shall be sure not to -be beaten them- 
selves ; but I always fight to beat the other man." 
This was the key to his tactics and his success. It 
was from "the nettle danger" that, like Hotspur. 
he strove to "pluck the flower safety." Yet it 
would be a great mistake to suppose that he 
lacked prudence. In all that wariness and skill 



214 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

could do to accomplish his results he was never 
wanting. 

We speak of General Sheridan often as a cavalry 
general ; but for more than a year and a half after 
the battle to which I have alluded he commanded 
infantry ; and his subsequent command of the 
Army of the Shenandoah, and his conduct of the 
pursuit of Lee, show how thoroughly he under- 
stood each of the great arms of the service. 

In September, 1862, he was transferred to a 
division in the Army of the Ohio, fighting in the 
successful battle of Perryville, under Buell. As- 
signed to a division in the Army of the Cumber- 
land, at Murfreesborough, in December, 1862, he 
bore his part most gallantly, under Rosecrans, in 
that terrible, and, at first, doubtful day. The 
battle went against us in the wing of the army 
where his division fought ; and after repulsing four 
successive attacks, his command was finally com- 
pelled to fall back to a position where he rallied it, 
and held it firmly against the enemy, who tried in 
vain to complete the victory, and who were the 
next day obliged to abandon the field. For his 
skilful handling of his troops he received the 
warmest praise from Rosecrans, who recommended 
him for promotion as a major-general, a distinction 
which was promptly accorded. 

At Chickamauga, in September of the following 
year, he still commanded a division of the Army of 
the Cumberland. The defeat received there by us 
was, on the whole, in its anticipated results, the 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 215 

most serious ever inflicted on the Union arms, for 
it threatened destruction to our control of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, which had been won at so much 
expense of blood and treasure. Sheridan's own 
division was in the worst of the disaster. No man 
had ever greater power of inspiring the troops 
under him with confidence in himself, and with 
breathing into them the fire of his own courage, 
than he. That magnetic quality soldiers who 
may deservedly be called great from their powers 
to plan campaigns, and from their strategic capa- 
city, sometimes lack ; but no man without it can 
be on the field a successful general. All that 
General Sheridan possessed was needed on that 
day, and was well used. While the stern bravery 
of Thomas held firmly on his part of the line, 
Sheridan succeeded in rallying his broken troops 
and re-forming his line, and he was advancing to 
support Thomas when he received the order to re- 
main where he was, and allow r the army to fall 
back on him. The day which could not be 
redeemed from defeat was thus rescued from 
rout and utter disaster. 

It was at the great battle of Chattanooga, on 
Missionary Ridge, which followed some two months 
later, that General Grant is believed to have first 
seen Sheridan's command under fire, and to have 
begun to form the opinion which he afterwards 
entertained, that he was unsurpassed in the world 
as a general on the field and in the immediate 
command of troops. The defeat of Chickamauga 



216 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

had been received with dismay ; but the battle of 
Chattanooga — one of the most important won by 
Grant — not only restored our position, but opened 
the way for Sherman's march to Atlanta. On the 
day of the battle, the Army of the Cumberland, 
then under Thomas, held the centre of the line ; 
and when the hour for the assault came, its troops, 
among; whom the divisions of Wood and Sheridan 
were foremost, rushed up the mountain wall, clam- 
bering from ridge to ridge with a furious energy 
which swept all before them. Sheridan used to 
say jestingly that he never knew who ordered 
such an assault as that ; and that " his division, 
that day, got away from him." It certainly did 
not get far away, as he too was up when it 
crowned the mountain crest, fully prepared to 
direct the stern pursuit of the retreating foe. It 
had, in fact, been intended, after taking the first 
line of the enemy's works, to halt and re-form ; but 
the blood of the Army of the Cumberland was 
up, and in the presence of Hooker on the right, 
with his Potomac troops, and Sherman on the left, 
with those from Mississippi, it was ready to show 
itself worthy of those who had come so far to 
its support. 

General Sheridan came to the East with General 
Grant, on the appointment of the latter to the 
command of all the armies of the Union. The 
Army of the Shenandoah was formed, to be placed 
under his command late in the summer of 1864. 
Without alluding, except by name, to Opequan, 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 217 

Winchester, and Fisher's Hill, the battle of Cedar 
Creek, as illustrating bis vast power over men, and 
his courage under circumstances the most adverse, 
must be mentioned in any sketch of him, however 
imperfect. His army was skilfully attacked in his 
absence, one division utterly surprised, and all 
gradually forced back until, in some portions of his 
army, the retreat had become a rout. Twenty miles 
away he heard the roar of the conflict, and, waiting 
for no aids or guards, he started at once for the 
field. His very progress was blocked as he neared 
the field by fugitives, to all of whom he cried, " Go 
back ; go back to your regiments ! we will sleep in 
our old camps to-night," until, for very shame, his 
voice was listened to. As he reached the field, the 
rout to some extent had been checked ; and two 
divisions had always stood resolute and firm. His 
presence on the field was an inspiration, regiment 
after regiment getting into position, men who could 
not find their own regiments going into others 
willingly, all animated by the fire of this daring 
spirit, who seemed to have come upon the scene, 
as in the Roman mythology, the war-god himself 
descended when the battle seemed lost to his 
children. The line was re-formed ; and firmly he 
awaited the last assault of the Confederate troops, 
which, vigorously made, was sternly repulsed. And 
now his own time had come. Riding down his line, 
received with rapturous cheers by men some of 
whom had been fugitives but a few hours before, 
but who were now readv to die for such a leader, as 



218 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

he cried : " We are going back to the camps we 
left ; we will have back every inch of ground we 
have lost, — every inch, remember," — the word 
for the assault was given ; all that had been lost 
was regained, and General Early again went 
" whirling up the valley." 

I do not pretend to be a very wide or accurate 
reader of military history ; but I believe it contains 
no account of any battle utterly lost that has been 
redeemed by the wisdom, the valor, the inspiration 
that came from only one man. Great fields have 
indeed often been recovered by the opportune ar- 
rival of fresh troops, led by a competent general. 
Marengo, which Napoleon always felt to be one of 
the greatest of his victories, seemed at the middle 
of the day so clearly lost that the Austrian general 
had retired to his tent, leaving the pursuit to his 
second in command. General Desaix, who had been 
despatched in a different direction, had marched at 
the sound of the cannon, and without orders, at 
once to the scene of the conflict. Behind him were 
more than ten thousand of the best troops of the 
French Army. " What do you think of the battle, 
Desaix ? " said Bonaparte to him. " I think, Gen- 
eral Bonaparte, "this battle is lost ; but before night- 
fall, with myself and my troops, you will be sure 
to win another." The result proved the accuracy 
of his prediction, although the brave soldier who 
uttered it gave his own life to verify it. But at 
Cedar Creek, out of a broken, dispirited, almost 
formless mob, one man alone had re-created an 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 219 

army, had filled it full with his own patriotic cour- 
age, and led it to victory over a foe flushed with 
success, to which it had yielded seven or eight 
miles of ground. If Sheridan swore a little while 
he was doing this, as Dr. Bartol thinks he may 
have done, I am altogether of the Reverend Doctor's 
opinion also, that he swore in sustaining a great 
and holy cause, — that of his country ; and I trust 
that the accusing angel did not deem it necessary 
to write down every hot word against him. 

In this matter of swearing some injustice has 
been done General Sheridan. The makers of anec- 
dotes spice them high, and do not shrink from 
slight exasperation. Remember what a battle-field 
is, — that it is no place for calm discussion, but for 
instant action. If in such moments he used some 
of those expletives in which the English language 
is said to be peculiarly rich, remember the intense 
excitement and ardent passion in which he had 
to speak. In no sense was General Sheridan a 
coarsely or vulgarly profane man, far less was 
he a contemner or clespiser of sacred things. He 
was faithful to the Church in which he had been 
reared, respectful to its ordinances and its min- 
isters always. 

It was the intention of General Grant not only 
to defeat Lee in the spring of 1865, — which, in an 
earlier stage of the war, would have been enough, 
— but to compel his surrender. It would have 
been a grave disaster if, escaping, he could unite 
with Johnston, and, moving towards the southwest, 



220 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

could continue the war. In such a struggle, which 
would turn out to be finally a race between swiftly 
moving bodies of troops, the cavalry would play a 
most important part. To command this, and the 
infantry which would from time to time support 
it, General Sheridan came from the Valley of Vir- 
ginia. In giving his orders to pass to the extreme 
right of the Confederate Army, it was contemplated 
by Grant that, in certain contingencies, Sheridan 
might himself be separated from the Potomac Army 
and compelled to move towards Sherman. Ob- 
serving that Sheridan looked somewhat grave at 
this, General Grant says in his Memoirs, " I told 
him that, as a matter of fact, I intended to close 
the war right here with this movement, and that 
it should go no further. His face at once bright- 
ened at this ; and slapping his thigh, he said, ' I 
am glad to hear it, and we can do it.' ' 

Then followed the attack on the Petersburg line 
by the Army of the Potomac, while, with match- 
less skill, Sheridan at Dinwidclie, Five Forks, 
Jetersville, and Sailor's Creek, checked the retreat 
of Lee to the southward, and at Appomattox closed 
the last avenue of escape towards the West with 
his cavalry and the rapidly moving infantry which 
sustained it. 

His later services, if less splendid than those to 
which I have called attention, were in a high de- 
gree valuable and useful to the country. Made 
lieutenant-general in 1869, on the promotion of 
General Sherman, he succeeded to the command of 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 221 

the army in 1884, and a few months before he died 
he received, by the title of general, the highest mil- 
itary rank which the country has ever bestowed. 

While I have necessarily spoken only of his mili- 
tary achievements, let us remember, as we part 
from this illustrious chieftain, that he was not 
merely a soldier with a passion for war. lie was 
an intense believer in the high destiny of this 
nation, and in the preservation of the American 
Union. He was a thoroughly patriotic man. 

Our citizens of Irish birth and Irish descent have 
a right to be proud of their record in the Civil War 
and of the many brave men they contributed to 
our armies. They have a right also to be proud 
that this great soldier was of their race and blood. 
He possessed many of the highest qualities which 
have distinguished the Irish people. Not having 
the rare gift of eloquence which has been bestowed 
so largely upon the countrymen of Burke and 
Grattan, of Curran and O'Connell, speaking always 
reluctantly before public audiences, and indeed be- 
fore gatherings of his old comrades, — when he did 
thus speak, his keen wit, his terse expression, gave 
point always to his utterance. But on the battle- 
field he had the eloquence of intense feeling. He 
knew just what to say, and how to say it so as to 
make the deepest impression and insure the readiest 
response. There his words, short, abrupt, in- 
cisive, came with the directness of rifle-shots, 
cheering the hesitating, fiercely rebuking the re- 
luctant, and directing the storm with a voice that 
must be obeyed. 



222 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

To say that he was brave is little, for the same 
might be said of thousands of other men. While 
he was fearless as the sabre that swung by his 
side, he was wise, — regarding the lives of the men 
he commanded as a trust not to be imperilled ex- 
cept as the result to be expected would justify risk, 
but when that time came, launching his troops on 
the enemy like a thunderbolt. Not Murat, whose 
brilliant charges did so much to win so many of 
Napoleon's battles ; not Prince Rupert, whose fiery 
courage at the head of the English cavaliers al- 
most saved the crown of his royal kinsman, King 
Charles, — had more impetuous valor than he ; and 
neither of them in the fury and rage of the onset 
had a more sound, unerring judgment. 

He was generous ; no broken soldier approached 
him who was not kindly received and cordially 
welcomed. If sometimes quick in temper, he was 
readily appeased, for his nature was loving and 
forgiving. 

Not the least interesting or least amiable charac- 
teristic of the Irish people is their strong attachment 
to friends and home and family. It was a marked 
feature in the character of General Sheridan. He 
was a tender and loving husband ; he was a kind 
father ; he was a grateful and devoted son. A few 
years ago, I had the honor of accompanying General 
Grant and him from Detroit ; and he left us at 
a way-station in Ohio, saying, " Once a year at 
least, I try to make a visit to my old mother." 
Her death, which took place but a little before 
his own, was concealed from him on account of 



ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 223 

the effect it might produce in his then dangerous 
condition. 

But while General Sheridan possessed many of 
the finest characteristics of the Irish race from 
which he was descended ; while he sympathized 
warmly, I doubt not, with it in all that it has else- 
where been called to endure, — he was essentially 
in thought and feeling an American. Born upon 
the soil of the United States, and within its alle- 
giance, he knew no country but this as his own. 
Educated at its expense, he was proud to be one of 
its children. He was ready to live for it ; he was 
ready to die rather than that one stripe should be 
erased or one star obscured in its glorious ensign. 
He was national in feeling to his very heart's core. 
When, without joining in the splendid review at 
Washington, he was sent by Grant with an army 
corps to the Rio Grande to notify, by his presence, 
imperial France that her attempt to break down 
the Republic of Mexico and establish a monarchy 
there by the bayonets of Europe must cease, he 
accepted the duty, and his report shows with what 
alacrity he did so. No notice was ever more vigor- 
ously served, or more promptly responded to. 

As we render our tribute to-night to this great 
soldier, whom we have a right to call by the tender 
names of " comrade " and " companion," we are 
reminded how fast the numbers diminish of those 
who were permitted to survive the war. Meade 
and Thomas, the fiery Hooker, the chivalrous Han- 
cock. — tlic head of our Order almost from its organ- 
ization until his death, — Grant himself, in whom is 



224 ADDRESS ON GENERAL SHERIDAN. 

united the just renown of all the armies of the 
Union, are gone. The fall of the leaders tells how 
s.ternly and steadily the artillery of time is doing 
its work. Yet the land itself is nobler and fairer 
by reason of the brave men who have been ready 
to die for it. 

" The waters murmur of their name ; 
The woods are peopled with their fame." 

The mountains seem to lift their heads more 
loftily, and the rivers to move to the sea with a 
more majestic sweep as they are ennobled by their 
memory. While that memory lives, they are not 
dead, for they stand as an example to which the 
humblest is entitled, and which the highest cannot 
afford to despise. They stand as an encouragement 
to duty and patriotism, and their honor is a part 
of the inheritance of all their countrymen. 

And if (which God avert ! ) war should come to 
others, as it came to us, it may be that at the close 
of some hotly contested day, when it shall be de- 
termined to finish with the advance of the old flag 
which he loved and under which he fought so well, 
when the word " forward " shall be heard from 
captain to captain along the line, the name of 
Sheridan, as a watchword and a battle-cry, shall 
ring from rank to rank, and from file to file, to 
inspire all with something of the daring and the 
courage of this great and heroic soul. 



EXTRACTS FROM THREE ADDRESSES 

AS PRESIDENT OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 
ASSOCIATION IN 1887, 1888, 1889. 



1887. 

While our meeting is primarily for business 
purposes, custom has permitted to the President, 
on occasions when no formal address was delivered 
before the Society, a few words in relation to the 
great day whose anniversary it is our immediate 
object to commemorate, or to that series of events 
which preceded or followed it. and of which it 
formed an integral and important part. I avail 
myself of this privilege to remind you that we 
reach this year the great Centennial of Peace, in 
which the battle of Bunker Hill and the bloody 
fields which followed it found their culmination 
and well-earned reward. 

The city of Philadelphia has a name in our 
Revolutionary annals that will ever be honored. 
It was in refinement and wealth probably then the 
first city in the Union. Here had met, in 1774, 
the first Continental Congress, assembled even 
before the first blow was struck to assert the 
rights of the colonies. Here, in 1775. the second 
Continental Congress had determined upon armed 
resistance to the arbitrary encroachments of the 

15 



226 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

Crown, and, upon the suggestion of Mr. John Adams, 
had, on the 15th day of June (two days only before 
the battle of Bunker Hill), chosen one of its own 
delegates, George Washington of Virginia, to be 
commander-in-chief of all forces raised and to be 
raised for the struggle. Here too, a year later, on 
the 4th of July, 1776, adopting for the first time 
a name forever illustrious, and terming themselves 
no longer the United Colonies, but the United 
States of America, our several communities had 
asserted their right to a place among the nations 
of the earth and their full and complete inde- 
pendence of the British Crown. From Philadel- 
phia, also, the operations of the war had been 
directed, and here, except for a brief period, 
had always sat the Revolutionary Congress. 
Here, after the Articles of Confederation had 
gone into effect in 1781, had met its Congress, 
which a few months later had walked in solemn 
procession to one of the churches, to return thanks 
to God for the victory over Cornwallis, which it 
rightly judged was to terminate the war ; and from 
here the instructions for a definitive treaty of peace 
and independence had been given, which on the 
third day of September, 1783, was signed in Paris 
by the minister of Great Britain, and on our behalf 
by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. 
But, solemn and imposing as these events were, 
Philadelphia, in the year 1787, was to witness one 
not less august and dignified. It was the session 
of the convention which ordained the Constitution 






THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 227 

of the United States, and which, assembling on the 
fourteenth day of May, signed the Constitution, 
and commended it for ratification to the people of 
the United States on the 17th of September, 1787. 
The centennial anniversary of the signature of the 
Constitution of the United States on the 17th of 
September will be appropriately celebrated on that 
day during the present year, under the direction of 
commissioners from the several States and a com- 
mittee of citizens and the City Government of 
Philadelphia. In his annual message to the Legis- 
lature, his Excellency the Governor of Massa- 
chusetts recommended that provision be made for 
assuring on this occasion a representation of Massa- 
chusetts, in a manner befitting the history and 
character of this commonwealth. This recommen- 
dation, I am informed, has been complied with. 
Whether it shall be our fortune individually to 
be present or absent, such a celebration can- 
not but awaken the profoundest interest in this 
Association. 

To overthrow a well-established government is 
not an easy task. Many interests of property, 
many sentiments of affection cling around old 
institutions, even those which cannot in themselves 
be commended. It is a far more difficult task out 
of the confusion which such a downfall creates to 
rear the structure of a firm, well-ordered State. 
The difficulties which the American States would 
have in establishing a firm government when the 
cohesive pressure of war was withdrawn were 



228 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

obvious from the first. Their relations each to the 
other and to foreign governments must be deter- 
mined and regulated, the strength and power of 
all must be consolidated, and yet to each must be 
left complete control of affairs within its own 
limits. The States achieved their independence 
each for itself, although as the ally of others ; yet 
to have existed as strictly independent States, 
bound together only by such treaties as are made 
between sovereigns, was certainly impossible. The 
belief that a stable government could never be 
established by us was, at the close of the war, 
nearly universal in Europe ; it was almost the only 
consolation of our late King George III., who 
always took very much to heart what he termed 
the revolt of America. There was a feeling even 
of regret in Great Britain that these States had 
ever been recognized in a treaty collectively, and 
that peace had not been made with each indi- 
vidually. An eminent British writer scouted the 
idea that America could ever be a rising empire, as 
one of the wildest dreams of romance. "The 
natural antipathies and clashing interests of the 
Americans," he said, " their difference of govern- 
ments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they 
will have no centre of union and no common 
interest. They never can be united into one com- 
pact empire under any form of government what- 
ever. A disunited people till the end of time, 
suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will 
be divided and subdivided into little common- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 229 

wealths or principalities, according to natural 
boundaries, by great bays of the sea and by vast 
rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains." 

Frederick the Great, who might' be looked upon 
as a disinterested observer of the conflict between 
Great Britain and her subjects, said in 1782 that 
b * he was persuaded that the American Union could 
not long subsist under its present form," and held 
that no inference could be drawn in favor of the 
American colonies from the States of Venice, 
Holland, and Switzerland, whose situation and 
circumstances were entirely different. 

The gravity of the problem had not diminished 
in the years that had intervened since the treaty 
of peace in 1783. On the contrary, the expe- 
rience of those years showed clearly that, de- 
fective as the government of the Confederation 
was in time of war, it was even more inadequate 
in time of peace. The Continental Congress had 
no defined powers ; it boldly seized on all which it 
could enforce either by will and energy or per- 
suasion. The Congress of the Confederation came 
into existence only in time to take part, in 1781, 
in the last of the Revolutionary struggle. It was 
precisely what the name imports, — a league and 
alliance, and nothing more. If it could incur 
debts, it could provide no means of paying them, 
for the revenue must be raised by the States them- 
selves. It could provide for an army; but it was 
for the States to furnish the money and the men. 
The Articles of Confederation declared, indeed, that 



230 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

it was their duty to do this ; but if they failed, there 
were no means of coercion. A government which 
controls neither purse nor sword, it is needless to 
say, is but a "mockery king." These defects were 
at the outset so readily seen that Washington 
early urged that there must be a power to compel 
the States to comply with the requisitions made on 
them for men and money, and expressed his fear 
that " after gloriously and successfully contending 
against the usurpations of Britain, we may fall a 
prey to our own follies and disputes." 

It needed, however, the experience of the four 
years that followed the war to satisfy the people 
of the United States that a stronger government 
must be established. Reluctant as were the several 
States to yield up any of the powers which they 
claimed as independent States, yet if there was to 
be a national sovereignty, while it might be one 
of defined and limited powers, it must be supreme 
within those powers, capable of enforcing its own 
decrees without resort to any agencies but its own. 
The States of the Union had nearly all adopted 
written constitutions ; that of Massachusetts, which 
is in substantial respects the same as that under 
which we now live, had been established by a 
convention called, by a curious coincidence, on 
the seventeenth day of June, 1780. It is the work 
in its essential parts of John Adams ; and he 
claimed with justice that in making it he aided in 
making that of the United States. The con- 
stitutions of all the American States insist, in 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 231 

opposition to the concessions made by monarchical 
governments, that all power resides with the 
people; that it is because the people have granted 
the right, that those who govern, do so rightfully; 
and that from them and of such a character must 
be the grant to any national government. 

That there should be a period of great exhaustion 
after a war like that for independence was to have 
been expected. But it was now seen that the great 
want was of a definitely settled government, com- 
petent to make war and peace, to make treaties, to 
regulate commerce, to control the jealousies be- 
tween the States, and to maintain its own powers, 
while it sustained a republican government in every 
State. 

Such a government was formed by the convention 
which one hundred }*ears ago to-day was in session 
at Philadelphia. While the weakness and defects 
of the Confederation had been often pointed out ; 
while the bitter controversies almost ready to break 
into open war between certain of the States were 
known ; while the difficulty of maintaining public 
order (never more conspicuously broken than in the 
Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts, whose conse- 
quences had been averted only by the courage and 
prudence of Governor Bowdoin) had been recog- 
nized, — it was by the invitation of Virginia to 
the other States that this great convention was 
summoned. There are many days in the history 
of that ancient commonwealth worthy of honorable 
mention. No more generous act was ever done 



232 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

than her surrender to all the States of her claim to 
the vast and fertile region which lay between her 
western boundaries and the Mississippi, which 
passed under the great Ordinance of 1787, which 
provided that there should be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude therein. Yet, side by side 
with this, may well be placed her frank, bold, clearly 
expressed summons to her sister States to convene 
for the purpose of constructing a firm and united 
government. <* The general assembly of this 
Commonwealth," she said, speaking by the pen of 
Madison, " can no longer doubt that the crisis is 
arrived at which the people of America are to 
decide the solemn question whether they will, by 
wise and magnanimous action, reap the fruit of 
independence and union ; or whether, by giving 
way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to 
partial and transitory interests, they will renounce 
the blessings prepared for them by the Revolution." 
The convention which met in May, 1787, had 
before it a solemn and most arduous task, in view 
of the imminence of the peril and of its conscious- 
ness of the dangers of disorder and anarchy with 
which the people of the United States were sur- 
rounded. The smaller States desired a govern- 
ment strictly federal, in which the power of the 
States should be equal. The system of slavery 
prevailed throughout the Southern States, and its 
existence must be recognized. It had substan- 
tially ceased to exist in the Eastern and Middle 
States, although it had distinctly been abolished in 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 233 

only one, and that our own State of Massachu- 
setts, — and here not by direct words, but by a 
judicial decision of the Supreme Court of the 
State, rendered at Worcester in 1783, which pro- 
nounced it wholly irreconcilable with the Consti- 
tution of the State adopted two years before, and 
especially with the admirable Bill of Rights which 
forms its preamble. Upon this case, so remark- 
able in the history of the State, Mr. Justice Gray, 
now of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
has written a most interesting paper. 

It was necessary yet difficult for the convention 
to draw a proper line between the powers of a na- 
tional government and those of the several States. 
It is obvious that whatever objects of government 
were confined in their operation and effect within 
the boundaries of any particular State should be 
considered as belonging to the government of that 
State ; while those objects of government which 
extended in their operation and effects beyond the 
boundaries of any individual State should be con- 
sidered as belonging to the Union. But a prin- 
ciple easy to state as an abstract proposition is 
often far from easy in actual application. 

It was early seen that whatever government 
was created must emanate directly from the peo- 
ple, and not from the States as such, in order that 
the allegiance of every citizen should be due alike 
to the Union and to the State in which he lived. 
It must have the power of raising its own reve- 
nues, and the means of compelling obedience to 



234 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

its own lawful decrees. It was by reason of the 
want of this that not only the Confederation, but 
all other purely federative systems historically 
known to us, have failed to create a strong and 
effective nationality ; it is because the Constitu- 
tion of the United States had this power that it 
has made of us collectively a people and a nation. 

. It is not my intention, of course, here to re- 
call the various alternations of hope and anxiety 
through which the convention passed during the 
four months of its session. Indeed, it is somewhat 
hard for any one to do this. Its history is gathered 
only from the faithful memoranda of Mr. Madi- 
son, the known opinions of its members, and their 
subsequent recollections. No formal record of its 
debates was kept ; the era of reporting had not 
come. It sat, indeed, with closed doors ; but as 
against the omnipresent reporter of the present 
day, closed doors, as you well know, are but feeble 
barriers. 

Yet I would willingly, if I might, roll back the 
mists of the century that lies between us, and look 
upon the faces of two or three of the chief actors 
in this great historic transaction, as they sat in 
the modest hall where were gathered the states- 
men of the Revolution, anxious to preserve by a 
definite organization all that its soldiers had won. 

Washington, soldier and statesman alike, was 
its presiding officer. No man realized more fully 
than he the weakness of the Confederation under 
which we had been living ; for with all the aid it 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 235 

had been able to afford him, his struggles to keep 
his little army in the field had been almost des- 
perate. All his experience and all his observation 
had convinced him that obedience to the orders of 
a general government could not be expected, un- 
less it was provided with the means of enforcing 
them. For the position of president of the con- 
vention he was exactly constituted. While he had 
studied and meditated long on the great problems 
of government ; while he spoke well and forcibly 
after careful preparation, for he was not a debater, 
nor adapted to the controversies of the floor, — 
his wisdom, his moderation, his calm dignity, 
fitted him admirably to direct the current of the 
debate; and his exalted character, his unexampled 
services, and the universal and profound respect 
felt for him in the country rendered his presence 
and countenance necessary in this attempt to 
establish a government. 

That, after Washington, to two men more than 
to any others (and large as the services of others 
were) we are indebted for the formation of the 
Constitution of the United States, is generally con- 
ceded. These were James Madison and Alexander 
Hamilton. Destined to be politically divided later 
iu life, they were, in this work, which bears 
throughout the indelible marks of the hand of 
each, cordially united. The very difference in the 
opinions they held contributed to the perfection of 
their work. Tt was for them also, when at a sub- 
sequent period the Constitution was submitted for 



236 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

ratification, to defend it in all its parts before the 
people of their respective States, and especially 
before the people of all the States, in a series of 
essays known as the " Federalist," of which about 
three quarters were written by Mr. Hamilton and 
one quarter by Mr. Madison. They are quoted still, 
whenever a constitutional question is discussed, as 
giving its contemporaneous construction. 

Mr. Madison was strictly a civilian and publi- 
cist. He had entered the Continental Congress 
near the close of the war, in 1780, with a repu- 
tation which had not then extended beyond the 
boundaries of his native State ; but it had not 
required the experience of either the Continental 
Congress, or of the congresses of the Confederation 
which followed, to develop him into a national 
statesman. Although not coming from a commer- 
cial State, he had from the first seen the necessity 
of so enlarging the powers of Congress that it 
should control the foreign commerce of the coun- 
try. He was now nearly forty years of age, and 
in the full ripeness of his powers. Possessed of a 
sufficient fortune, his patriotism and his taste had 
caused him to devote his life to the public and to 
the great questions which were then pressing upon 
it. His grasp of such questions was firm and 
strong, and no man was ever more sincerely 
desirous of the good of the whole country. His 
industry was extraordinary, surpassing that of 
any of our statesmen, unless it be Mr. John 
Quincy Adams. His powers of debate were great, 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 237 

and lie had full command of all his resources when 
he was on his feet, — " never wandering from his 
subject," says Mr. Jefferson, " into vain declama- 
tion, but pursuing it closely in language pure, 
classical, and copious, and soothing always the 
feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness 
of expression." These powers enabled him after- 
wards, when the question of the adoption of the 
Constitution was discussed before the people of 
Virginia, successfully to encounter even the fervid 
declamation of the great orator of the Revolution, 
Patrick Henry. 

Yet that no man in that great convention stood 
above Alexander Hamilton must be admitted by 
all ; and it would not be worth while now to con- 
sider whether he might not properly be assigned 
distinctively the first place. He had, in the words 
of Washington, " all the qualities essential to a 
great military character ; " but he united with 
these the strongest ability as a jurist and the 
widest capacity as a statesman. He was at this 
time but thirty years of age. In the early matu- 
rity of his powers there is but one statesman of 
the British race known to us who can compare 
with him. It is the second William Pitt, who was 
prime minister of England at twenty-four years 
of age. The political life of Hamilton may be 
said to have besrun at the as;e of seventeen. At 
that time, in 1774, while a student in college, he 
had written a series of essays in answer to the 
Tory pamphlets of the day, which produced upon 



238 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

the public mind the strongest impression, and 
which evinced a grasp of the whole controversy 
and a vigor of thought well worthy of any states- 
man. Before he was nineteen years old he be- 
came a captain of artillery in the Continental 
Army ; and when only twenty years of age, in 
1777, he was selected by Washington as one of 
his aids, serving with him in that capacity until 
1782, when he took his seat in the Congress of 
the Confederation. During these years of military 
service he wrote much on the financial condition 
of the country, the defects of the government, and 
the want of a real executive power. He was early 
impressed, while a young man of twenty-three, 
with the necessity of a national system of credit, 
finance, and government, and by pointing this out, 
led the way to our later Union. In the Conven- 
tion of 1787 he was the champion of Nationalism ; 
nor did this in any way seem to him inconsistent 
with the just powers and duties of the States, 
whose expanding glories he delighted to point out, 
as well as that of the Union as the guardian and 
the security of them all. He loved liberty in- 
tensely, but it seemed to him that it could be 
preserved only in a permanent and settled govern- 
ment. The charge — for it is hardly less — that 
has been sometimes imputed to him, that he de- 
sired a monarchical government, has long since 
been refuted. He knew America thoroughly, and 
the tone and temper of its people as it had been 
developed in the years since 1774, and that no 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 239 

such government was desirable or even possible. 
But he did believe in a republic fully competent to 
assert itself : if it could not have strength and 
stability, "it would be," in his own words, '"dis- 
graced and lost to ourselves ; disgraced and lost 
to mankind forever." He doubted, when the work- 
was done, whether the government was sufficiently 
strong, although he cordially accepted it as the 
best that was practicable. But he had builded 
better than he knew. To him and to those na- 
tional statesmen, like Mr. Webster, who followed 
him, that political faith is due which has since 
carried the nation triumphantly through its 
striurorle for existence. 

Co 

It was the sad fate of Mr. Hamilton to die in 
early middle life, in the full maturity of his splen- 
did powers and with years of usefulness and of, 
noble fame before him, — a victim to the false code 
of honor which still asserted its sway. It was the 
happy lot of Mr. Madison, after years of honorable 
service as the Secretary of State and President of 
the Republic he had aided to create, to live to an 
advanced age, when party feelings had long been 
forgotten, and when a whole people did honor to 
his exalted patriotism, his high services, his pure 
and noble character. But their names are forever 
associated each with the other in the great instru- 
ment which their combined genius, wisdom, and 
noble purposes did so much to create. 

If I have mentioned their names individually, I 
have not forgotten the great men with whom they 



240 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

were associated. No body of men ever assembled 
with higher or more disinterested objects, more 
ready to concede to the just claims of others, more 
conscious of the great trusts imposed upon them. 
Many of them had borne nobly their part, whether 
in civil or military life, in the scenes of the Revo- 
lution. The great experiment made when the 
States renounced the authority of the British 
Crown, they knew had now come to its final 
test. Liberty had been won ; but now there must 
be union, or the only liberty worth having — that 
which is embodied in free institutions, and guarded 
and protected by law — would itself be lost. It 
was on the 17th of September, one hundred years 
ago, that the convention completed its work. Its 
difficulties had been great ; New York had retired 
by a majority of its delegates, and left Hamilton 
alone. While he doubted as to some of the features 
of the Constitution, as a whole he had supported 
it with his strong logical reasoning and his noble 
eloquence, and he remained to give to its recom- 
mendation at least his individual name. 

Its signature was an act of grave importance, not 
unworthy to be compared with that of the Declara- 
tion. Whether it would be ratified by the people of 
the several States was uncertain, and if it was not, 
the clangers of the situation were far from imagi- 
nary. Washington, as he signed his name, expressed 
his fears that if the people should reject this Con- 
stitution, the opportunity would never again offer 
to cancel another in peace. To Hamilton, " the 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 241 

establishment of a constitution in a time of pro- 
found peace by a voluntary consent of a whole 
people, seemed," as he says, " a prodigy to which 
he looked forward with trembling anxiety." 

Mr. Madison preserves an anecdote of Dr. 
Franklin, however, which on his part shows a 
more hopeful spirit. The genial old man was now 
eighty-two years of age, and had taken his full 
share in the labors of the Convention ; as the last 
members were signing, he looked towards the back 
of the President's chair, where the representation 
of a sun was painted, and remarked that painters 
in their art had often found it difficult to distin- 
guish between a rising and a setting sun. "I 
have," said he, " often and often, in the course of 
the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and 
fears as to the issue, looked at that behind the 
President without being able to tell whether it was 
rising or setting ; but now at length I have the 
happiness -to know it is a rising and not a set- 
ting sun." 

So rose, on that September da}', the sun of a 
great, free, well-ordered government. It rose above 
three millions of people and thirteen States that 
fringed the Atlantic coast. It shines to-day above 
sixty millions of people, and over an imperial Union 
whose gateways are on the Atlantic and the Pacific 
seas, and which has bound together, as with a 
golden cord, thirty-eight States and nine Terri- 
tories. " The Constitution of the United States," 
says Mr. Gladstone in substance (I do not quote 

16 



242 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

his exact words), " is the most wonderful instru- 
ment of government ever constructed in a definite 
time by the hand of man." In the largest measure 
it has fulfilled for us all its great objects. It has 
formed a more perfect Union, established justice, 
insured domestic tranquillity, provided for the com- 
mon defence, and secured the blessings of liberty 
to ourselves and our posterity. The ultimate justifi- 
cation of every revolution must be found in the 
ability to construct a better government than that 
which is overthrown. It is the government which 
the convention of 1787 created which justifies the 
Revolution. Deeds become great by the conse- 
quences which follow them. 

We meet to-day to commemorate a battle indeed, 
but it is the civic consequences which followed, 
that have made it renowned. It is the step that 
was then taken, in the assertion of the great prin- 
ciple that all power comes from the people, that 
it is the right of each nation to govern itself 
through such free institutions as it may designate, 
and it is the successful demonstration of that prin- 
ciple in the establishment of the Constitution under 
which we have lived and prospered for an hundred 
years, which render the battle of Bunker Hill 
worthy of eternal memory. If the tranquillity 
which the Constitution sought to insure has once 
been broken by a great civil strife, let us rejoice that 
its fiercer utterances have long since died away ; 
that the Constitution has shown its full capacity to 
vindicate itself in a tempest wilder than its framers 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 243 

could ever have foreboded even in their most anxious 
and despondent hours, and that all now acknowl- 
edge its firm but genial and beneficent sway. Had 
these things been otherwise ; had it been found im- 
possible in 1787 to frame a government ; had civil 
commotions, whose dark shadow was already above 
us, followed, — such as have more than once de- 
stroyed the liberties of republics and induced the 
friends of peace and order to take refuge even 
under arbitrary power, — the battle of Bunker Hill 
would have been remembered indeed as a field of 
magnificent valor and courage, where a few hun- 
dred New England yeomanry had encountered and 
again and again hurled back the resolute assaults 
of the best soldiers of Europe ; but only thus, and 
not, as now, as a distinct mark in the history of 
civilization and of the progress of liberty. 

Tenderly and respectfull} 7 , then, I am sure, gen- 
tlemen, we all recall that great convention which 
was sitting in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 ; 
and we shall unite in grateful sympathy with every 
celebration by which honor is sought to be done to 
its great and crowning act. 

1888. 

Our societ} 7 , gentlemen, connects itself so closely 
with the whole history of the Revolutionary era, 
that if I have not alread} T exhausted }'our patience, 
I am tempted to call your attention to two events 
of interest which this } T ear have reached their 
centennial anniversary. 



244 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

The settlement of the Northwest Territory, 
which now contains the great and powerful States 
of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, 
began on the arrival at Marietta of the colony 
which was led by General Rufus Putnam, April 7, 
1788. It was commemorated there last April by 
an oration from Senator Hoar, and addresses from 
many distinguished gentlemen, especially one from 
Hon. J. Randolph Tucker of Virginia. This expedi- 
tion was the result of a meeting in Boston, at the 
Bunch of Grapes Tavern, on March 1, 1786, whose 
call was especially addressed to all officers and sol- 
diers of the late war who might wish to become pur- 
chasers of lands in the Ohio country. It was to be 
led by General Rufus Putnam, of Massachusetts ; 
and it was determined that those only should go 
who were men of some means, of character, and who 
intended to become actual residents of the new 
country. The State of Virginia, with unexampled 
generosity, had surrendered her claim to this vast 
and fertile region to the Congress of the Confecl- 
eration. The scheme for the settlement of it occu- 
pied a very near place in Washington's heart. He 
was the counsellor and friend of General Putnam 
at every stage of its progress. Yet while they 
were willing to purchase the lands they desired for 
the Ohio Company, as it was called, those who con- 
trolled the plan in Massachusetts felt that there 
must be guaranteed to them civil and religious 
•liberty in their new homes, and that slavery should 
not exist therein. While Putnam was to superin- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. '_! ! 5 

tend the expedition, Dr. Manasseh Cutler was the 
envoy to Congress to settle definitely these im- 
portant points. The Ordinance of 1787 was the 
last great act of that Congress so soon to pass 
away, and it crowned its long and checkered career 
with glorious light. By that ordinance neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude was ever to exist 
in the States to be formed from the Northwest Ter- 
ritory. Nor should it be forgotten that in this 
great act the representatives of Virginia concurred 
with those of Massachusetts, as it passed with the 
objection of but a single vote. I intend, of course, 
but a passing allusion to this great event ; but to 
us it is of profound interest in many ways. To 
quote a remark of Mr. George W. Curtis, although 
not with verbal accuracy, no body of men have 
ever impressed themselves on a whole nation as 
the Puritan founders of New England. This colony 
was the first swarm from the New England hive. 
It finally embraced nearly fifty officers of the Revo- 
lutionary Army ; it was led by one of the best men 
that Massachusetts ever produced. He was a lieu- 
tenant-colonel in a Worcester County regiment on 
the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, and became 
an engineer of the American Army on the arrival 
of Washington.' He planned and executed the last 
works on Dorchester Heights, by which General 
Howe was compelled either to fight or to fly. Al- 
though mainly self-taught, he was a natural mathe- 
matician, and in a letter to Congress Washington 
said of him that he was the best engineer, French 



246 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

or American, that the army ever had. He was of 
the near kindred, a cousin, of General Israel Put- 
nam, with whom he is often confounded. Fort 
Putnam and the remains of the fortifications which 
still exist at West Point were constructed by him, 
as a part of the plan for the capture of Burgoyne, 
by preventing his junction with the British troops 
at New York. These are often erroneously sup- 
posed to have been the work of General Israel Put- 
nam, whose abilities were rather those of courage 
and action in the field. The confusion, however, 
is very natural, as General Israel Putnam actually 
commanded the troops at that part of the Hudson 
River, and in a certain sense, there directed the 
works. 

But the profounclest interest in this colony still 
is due to the fact that it went forth to make of the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence and 
of the Ordinance of 1787 living realities, and that 
millions live in the enjoyment of liberty and pros- 
perity to bless its founders for their noble enter- 
prise. Virginia and Massachusetts — I use the 
words of Senator Hoar — " may well clasp each 
other's hands anew as they survey the glory of 
their work. These two States, the two oldest of 
the sisterhood, — the State which framed the first 
written constitution, and the State whose founders 
framed the compact on the " Mayflower ; " the 
State which produced Washington, and the State 
which summoned him to his high command ; the 
State whose son drafted the Declaration of Indepen- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 247 

dence, and the State which furnished its leading ad- 
vocate on the floor; the mother of John Marshall, 
and the mother of the President who appointed him ; 
the State which gave the general, and the Slate 
which furnished the largest number of soldiers, to 
the Revolution ; the State which gave the terri- 
tory of the Northwest, and the State which gave 
its first settlers, — may well delight to remember 
that they share between them the honor of the 
authorship of the Ordinance of 1787. . . . The 
estrangements of four years have not obliterated the 
common and tender memories of two centuries." 

The centennial anniversary of the other event 
to which I would allude is to be celebrated this 
week in Concord, N. H., by an address before the 
Historical Society and the citizens. Simple as I 
understand the ceremony is to be, the act com- 
memorated is one of the highest magnitude. AVe 
spoke at our last meeting of the convention to 
form the Constitution of the United States, which 
was in session a hundred years before in Philadel- 
phia. As recommended to the people, it was pro- 
vided that it should <j-o into full effect when it had 
received the assent of nine of the thirteen States, 
and to the Congress of the Confederation was in- 
trusted, as its last duty, that of then setting in opera- 
tion the new government. The year that followed 
was one of immense anxiety. The Constitution was 
in fact, as Mr. John Quincy Adams has said, "ex- 
torted from the grind in l;; necessities of unwilling; 
States." To us who have known no other govern- 



248 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

merit than this ; who have seen in how large 
measure it has fulfilled the noble words of the 
preamble, which declare that it is ordained by the 
people of the United States " in order to form a 
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domes- 
tic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 
ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," — it 
is somewhat difficult to understand the serious op- 
position it encountered. The causes of it are not, 
however, far to seek. It involved the relinquish- 
ment of some of their own highest powers of gov- 
ernment by the States, and the consequent fear that 
those thus relinquished might be used disadvan- 
tageous^ to them. The small States were appre- 
hensive of being crushed by the larger, while the 
latter felt that too much power had been conceded 
to the former. The system of slavery, from its 
very nature demanding peculiar guaranties, had 
strong influence in some, although not all, the slave- 
holding States. Nor had the Constitution of the 
United States been preceded by a bill or declaration 
of rights, such as then and now precedes the Con- 
stitution of Massachusetts, and such as were in 
existence in most of the other States of the Union. 
Such a declaration, asserting the equal rights of 
all before the law, — freedom of speech and of the 
press, freedom of conscience in religious matters, 
freedom of elections, security against unreasonable 
searches and seizures or excessive fines or punish- 
ments, trial by jury in civil and criminal cases, the 






THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 249 

protection of property against public use except on 
full compensation, the independence of the judi- 
ciary, — would have comprehended only the great 
principles of English liberty as we had always 
asserted them. It was said in the convention that 
this was unnecessary ; that the government to be 
funned was one of limited powers ; that these prin- 
ciples were applicable to the relation between the 
States and their immediate citizens ; and that so far 
as they were appropriate to the general govern- 
ment they were necessarily implied. Whatever 
may be the logical merit of this answer, and it cer- 
tainly has some, it did not take into account the 
natural feeling of a people proud of their liberty. 
who had endured great sacrifices to maintain it, 
and who were jealous of surrendering the power 
they possessed into other hands without ample 
security against its abuse. It was therefore one of 
the few mistakes made by the convention, that 
it had not accompanied the Constitution with a 
solemn assertion of the great principles of liberty 
which formed its groundwork. All these are found 
in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, 
passed in pursuance of its provisions, and so nearly 
contemporaneously with it as to be treated now 
almost as an original part. They were all pro- 
posed at the first session of the First Congress. 

As the Constitution was to be operative on all 
the people, it was determined by the convention 
that it must be adopted by the people themselves 
in each State, acting through conventions specially 



250 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

called for the purpose by the legislatures of their 
respective States. Although the convention of 
Pennsylvania, at the instance of Franklin, who was 
the President, as he was termed, of the State, and 
who thus rendered his last great public service, was 
called previously to that of Delaware, the latter 
has the honor of being the first to accept the Con- 
stitution, which it did on the 6th day of December, 
1787, at a convention in Dover in that State, and 
by a unanimous vote. Nor does the language used 
want anything in explicitness, for the record says, 
" The deputies of the Delaware State fully, freely, 
and entirely approved of, assented to, ratified, and 
confirmed the Federal Constitution," and on the 
next day each delegate subscribed his name. It was 
in the debate in the convention of Pennsylvania 
that the objection to the Constitution arising from 
the fact that it was not prefaced by a bill of rights 
first became manifest. But, excited by the example 
of Delaware, the Federalists (of course I use the 
word as it was then used, indicating supporters of 
the Constitution, and not as afterwards used, when 
it designated a great political party) determined 
to press the matter to a close ; and on the 12th 
of December, 1787, by a vote of two to one, the 
Constitution was adopted, Pennsylvania thus prov- 
ing herself worthy of the name she has sometimes 
received, as the keystone of the American arch. 
New Jersey followed by a unanimous vote on the 
18th of December ; and thus the three central 
States of the Union formed a pillar of strength in 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 251 

all the subsequent controversy. On the 2d of 
January, 1788, Georgia unanimously ratified the 
Constitution in convention at Augusta ; and Con- 
necticut on the 9th of January, at Hartford, fol- 
lowed her example by a majority of three to one. 

Much anxiety was now 7 felt as to the action of 
the convention in Massachusetts, which was to as- 
semble on the same day as that on which the con- 
vention in Connecticut finished its work. It was 
known that there was a strong party in Massachu- 
setts opposed to the Constitution, and her example 
might be decisive of the project. Madison and 
Hamilton; in their respective States of Virginia and 
New York, were bending every energy to complete 
the work the inception of which they had so nobly 
aided, and w r ere encountering strong and powerful 
opposition from men who represented much of the 
wealth and the talent of those States. Reinforced 
by the example of Massachusetts, they might hope 
each to conclude the struggle successfully. John 
Hancock, then the Governor of the commonwealth, 
was chosen President of the convention, and from 
the first the Federalists adopted the plan of treating 
their opponents with great deference and courtesy. 
It was found that in all the commercial and sea- 
shore towns, and especially in Boston, there was a 
strong feeling in favor of the Constitution. The 
rural population was less inclined to it. Samuel 
Adams was supposed to be less favorably disposed 
than most of the leading; citizens of the State: 
but the strong attitude taken by the mechanics 



252 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

of Boston, who had always been his supporters, 
had its influence upon him. The objection most 
strongly pressed was the want of a distinct bill 
of rights and privileges. This was finally met 
with adroitness, but entire fairness. While the 
ratification must be positive and explicit ; while 
to have annexed any condition would have de- 
prived it of any force, — it was competent, while 
accepting the Constitution fully, freely, and as 
it was written, to recommend that certain amend- 
ments should be subsequently adopted. Hancock, 
who had been kept from the chair by the gout, on 
the 31st of January took his place and proposed 
this plan. He suggested nine several amendments 
to be recommended, while the ratification by the 
State should be unqualified. These were drawn 
with great clearness and force, and are under- 
stood to have been the workmanship of Theophilns 
Parsons, afterwards Chief-Justice of Massachusetts. 
The most important of them is found in what is 
now the tenth amendment to the Constitution, 
which declares : " All powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited 
by it to the States, are reserved to the States re- 
spectively, or to the people." The skilful plan 
thus proposed was acceded to ; and on the 6th of 
February the motion to ratify the Constitution was 
passed by a vote of 187 to 168. With this every 
symptom of unpleasant opposition here vanished. 
Massachusetts was the sixth State to ratify the 
Constitution. The bells were runs; and cannon 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 253 

fired in every part of the town, while as night 
approached, bonfires illuminated the scene. The 
Long Lane, as it was called, upon which stood the 
meeting-house where the convention met, had its 
name changed by common consent to Federal Street, 
which it bears to-day. " The Boston people," Gen- 
ral Knox wrote to Chancellor Livingston, " have 
lost their senses with joy." 

The centennial of this interesting day was cele- 
brated last February in the hall where we are now 
gathered, by a most appropriate address from the 
accomplished President of the Society w r hose hospi- 
tality we are now enjoying; and if they made some- 
what less noise than their ancestors, yet those who 
were privileged to participate met, I trust, with no 
less grateful hearts. 

Maryland ratified the Constitution on April 25, 
1788, by a majorit}^ of six to one, and on May 23, 
South Carolina did the same by a majority of more 
than two to one; each State, like Massachusetts, 
suggesting amendments, but making its ratifica- 
tion unconditional. 

Eight States had now given their assent, and 
but one more was needed to make nine, which 
would complete the government. From that time, 
whether other States came in or stayed out, the 
experiment would be tried, and the position of all 
the hesitating States would necessarily change. 
The conventions of New York and Virginia were 
in session, and debate in each was high and hot, 
when, exactly a hundred years ago today, on the 



254 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

18th of June, 1787, the convention of New Hamp- 
shire met at Concord, by adjournment from Exeter, 
in that State. Of this convention Mr. Ebenezer 
Webster, the father of Daniel Webster, was a 
member. How New Hampshire should decide 
was a matter of supreme importance ; for if she 
favored the Union, and its government was in- 
augurated, New York and Virginia would have to 
face a formidable problem in confronting such a 
government. A system of express riders had been 
arranged between Hamilton and some of the leading 
Federalists of New England, including Rufus King 
and General Knox, to which General Sullivan, the 
President of the New Hampshire convention, was 
without doubt a party, that Hamilton should have 
the earliest intelligence at Poughkeepsie, where the 
convention of New York was in session, while he 
in turn would despatch it to Madison, at Richmond, 
by another system of riders. The post travelled 
then only about fifty miles a day, and for that he 
could not wait. Every moment was precious. On 
the 21st day of June, 1788, after a session of only 
four days, the convention of New Hampshire rati- 
fied the Constitution, and the new government was 
thenceforth a fixed and settled fact. The record 
states that the vote was taken at one o'clock in the 
afternoon, and is supposed to have been thus par- 
ticular in order that if Virginia voted the same 
day, she should not dispute with New Hampshire 
the honor of giving life to the Constitution. An 
express messenger immediately started, sent by 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 255 

General Sullivan to Governor Hancock ; and the 
glad tidings went forward at once to Hamilton, 
while Boston again broke into one of its outbursts 
of joy. The message on the 24th of June reached 
Hamilton at Poughkeepsie ; and as the distance 
was two hundred and fifty miles, the feat was 
then thought a marvel of enterprise. Who the 
stout riders that bore it so rapidly were, there is 
no one to relate ; but the wallet thrown across 
their shoulders bore the news that a nation had 
sprung into life fully armed, as it is fabled that 
the Athenian goddess was born, and that the 
sword of liberty and justice to all men was in her 
hand. On the same day the message went for- 
ward from Hamilton to Madison at Richmond ; 
but before it could reach him, Virginia had 
spoken. In her convention had ensued the most 
remarkable debate that had occurred in any State. 
Its leaders on opposite sides were Patrick Henry 
and James Madison. Nor were they unequally 
matched ; for while Madison had none of the im- 
passioned eloquence of Henry, yet, cool, calm, and 
judicious in a protracted debate, — which, if main- 
tained long enough, will be decided by reason and 
argument, and not by emotion or passion, — he 
was a most formidable opponent. On the 25th 
of June, without the knowledge that the Constitu- 
tion had already been adopted by the requisite 
number of States, Virginia ratified it absolutely, 
although, as in Massachusetts, certain amendments 
were recommended. The conduct of Henry was 






256 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

manly and patriotic. When the result was reached, 
he gave his assent to it as a citizen who would seek 
only to amend what he deemed the defects of the 
system in a constitutional way. It is pleasant to 
remember that in after years he was offered the 
position of Chief-Justice of the United States lyy 
Washington, although his then broken health com- 
pelled him to decline it. 

The conflict in New York was bitter to the last ; 
but when ten States had ratified, Hamilton had in 
his hands a weapon whose thrusts could not be par- 
ried. As fast as horse and man could carry it, the 
joyful news from Madison of the vote of Virginia 
reached him ; yet this was not until the 8th of 
July. On the 26th day of July, by the slender 
majority of three votes, New York ratified the 
Constitution, in terms less explicit than could have 
been wished, yet which may fairly be termed un- 
conditional. For Hamilton it was indeed a day of 
just and splendid triumph. North Carolina and 
Rhode Island alone were left, and their ratification 
soon followed ; nor is it easy to see how they could 
have done otherwise. 

Throughout the long struggle, the words of 
Washington had been heard in every contested 
State, in letters which show how wise and far- 
seeing he was, urging upon his countrymen the 
adoption of the Constitution. The universal be- 
lief that he was the one to be first called to ad- 
minister it, and to try whatever of experiment it 
involved, had, without doubt, a strong influence 
on the result. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 2-j7 

The Congress of the Confederation met for the 
last time in July, 1788, to give direction for the 
organization of the new government and practi- 
cally to read its own death-warrant. It made New 
York the temporary seat of the new government, 
and the first Wednesday of the next March, which 
was that year the 4th, was designated to com- 
mence proceedings under it. It fixed a time for 
the choice of the electors of President and Vice- 
President, and it left to the States each for itself 
the times and places of choosing their senators and 
representatives. It was not, in fact, until the 6th 
of April of the next year that the Senate and 
House formed a quorum, and that the votes were 
counted by John Langdon, the President of the 
Senate, in the presence of the two Houses. Each 
elector had at that time two votes on a single 
ballot, the President and Vice-President being voted 
for on the same ticket, and the highest in number 
being the chosen President. Every one of the 
electoral ballots w r as for Washington ; and John 
Adams, having the next highest in number, was 
declared Vice-President. 

Washington arrived in New York on the 23d of 
April, and the 30th was appointed for his inaugu- 
ration. The hall of the Senate w T as upon Wall 
Street, where he was ceremoniously received by the 
two Houses on the day fixed. He was then fifty- 
seven years old, in the manly vigor of his mature 
life, before age with its frosty touch had laid its 
hand upon him. As he stepped out on the balcony 



258 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

which had been reared in front of the hall before 
the vast crowd that filled the streets, all felt that 
no more majestic and stately presence had ever 
been seen among magistrates or the rulers of men. 
Even this seemed but little when his high char- 
acter, his grave wisdom,»his self-sacrificing patriot- 
ism, were remembered. The oath of office was 
administered to him by Chancellor Livingston, who 
added, " Long live George Washington, President 
of the United States ! " while the streets rang with 
acclamations. He returned to the Senate chamber, 
and as he closed his inaugural speech, trembling 
with emotion, he said : " It would be peculiarly 
improper to omit in this first official act my fer- 
vent supplications to that Almighty Being who 
presides in the councils of nations, that his bene- 
diction may consecrate to the liberties and hap- 
piness of the people of the United States a 
government instituted by themselves. .• . . The 
preservation of liberty and the destiny of the re- 
publican model of government are justly consid- 
ered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the 
experiment intrusted to the American people." 

From the masses of the people in many forms 
of expression, from "public meetings, from the 
most eminent citizens at home, from friends of 
the country and of republican institutions abroad, 
Washington received most cordial good wishes as he 
entered upon his great task. As the opening suc- 
cess of his administration began to develop itself, 
he had the pleasure of receiving from Franklin, a 






THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 250 

short time before the aged patriot died, a letter of 
congratulation, in which he said, " For my own 
persona] case I should have died two years ago ; 
but though those years have been spent in ex- 
cruciating pain, I am pleased that I have lived, 
since they have brought me to see our present 
situation." 

On the 4th of March next a hundred years will 
have passed since the government commenced un- 
der this illustrious man came into existence. It 
began in doubts and anxieties long since dispelled, 
as its wonderful elasticity and its imperial strength 
have been recognized. While the highest have 
not been above its power, the humblest have not 
been below its fostering care. It has not only 
borne us with favoring gales over sunny seas ; it 
has weathered the wildest storm that ever raged 
on sea or land. 

There have been twenty-five Presidential elec- 
tions. We now approach the twenty-sixth, which 
will be the first in our second century of national 
life. Of course there are differences of opinion, 
which are expected to find in it their appropriate 
expression. Nor would it be desirable that such 
occasions should pass without discussion and delib- 
eration, as it would argue an indifference to public 
affairs in which no citizen has a right to indulge. 
It was intended by the fathers that power should 
return to the people at short intervals, that they 
might express their wish as to its exercise. Yd 
as there can be no administration of public affairs 



260 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

which, if successful, will not shed its benefits on all, 
nor any which, if disastrous, will not involve all in 
a common misfortune, the contest may well be 
fraternal, and such as becomes those who seek 
alike the general welfare. The glory and the hap- 
piness of the country are dear to all its children. 
Let our actions and our example, then, always 
show that, as the people are the rightful authors 
and depositaries of power, so they are also its 
safest and wisest guardians. 

1889. 

I would remind you that at our last meeting we 
spoke of the trials that attended the adoption 
of the Constitution of the United States, and of 
the fact that, before our meeting of to-day, the 
Centennial Anniversary of the Inauguration of 
Washington as our first President would be com- 
memorated. 

The War of the Revolution had been fought 
through on the great basis of the sovereignty of 
the people, yet by States which had asserted their 
independence not only from any foreign govern- 
ment, but each from the other. The Continental 
Congress and the Congress of the Confederation 
had done their work through many difficulties and 
trials. Alternately urging and imploring the 
respective States, having no executive powers to 
enforce their decrees, and no executive head 
through whom they could act, they had still ended 
the war in triumph by the peace of Versailles in 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 261 

1783. Inadequate for the time of war, it was 
obvious that a mere Congress of distinct States 
could never govern when the danger and pressure 
of war were withdrawn. All saw that in some way 
the States must be united in a single government, 
alike as regarded foreign nations and in those 
relations with each other upon which their inter- 
course, commerce, and safety depended. Their 
citizens must be made one people, as they had 
asserted themselves to be in that sentence of the 
Declaration which prefaces the statement of the 
causes which induced them as one people to 
dissolve the political bands which had connected 
them with another. Yet the jealousies of the 
different States, the reluctance of the people to 
yield any portion of their power except to their 
own immediate State government, the fear, en- 
gendered by the long and desperate struggle with 
the British Crown, of executive authority, which 
they knew must be partially surrendered if the 
government they sought to create w^as to be 
efficient, were formidable obstacles. The great 
executive powers which are in the hands of the 
President of the United States we look at to-day 
without any apprehension or fear that they can be 
used to the injury of the people or the diminution 
of its liberties. We recall how wisely and judi- 
ciously, taken as a whole, they have always been 
exerted ; and we have lived when the safety of a 
nation demanded that they should be exercised 
to their utmost limit. It is doubtful if a hundred 



262 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

years ago they would have been confided to any 
one but for the thought that Washington would be 
the first to exercise them, and that by him the new 
government w r ould be tested. The sword they 
placed in his hands, strongly wielded as it would 
be against domestic disorder or foreign aggression, 
they knew would never be used to oppress those 
who had invested him with power. The vast obli- 
gations they w r ere under to him as a warrior they 
recognized, but his fame had not been that of a 
soldier only ; his wisdom, calmness, and moderation 
had been tried often, and had never failed. His 
unselfishness was as conspicuous as his valor. If 
he had ambition, it was that which was to be 
satisfied by serving highly a great and noble cause, 
and not by empty honors or rich emoluments. 
Among all the men the world has known, history 
has recorded none so fit as he to be the guardian 
of the only liberty worth having, — the liberty 
which is enshrined in and defined and protected by 
law. Profound as was the wisdom of Hamilton, 
Madison, and the other statesmen who framed the 
Constitution, skilfully and bravely as they dealt 
with the many trials in their path, had it not 
been that Washington presided over their delib- 
erations, and consented, reluctantly, yet yield- 
ing to a high sense of duty, to endeavor to 
make of that Constitution a living thing by 
demonstrating its capacity for practical operation, 
it may be that their work would have come to 
naught. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 2G3 

It was therefore most fitting that the Centennial 
Anniversary of the Inauguration of our first 
President should have been celebrated as it was in 
our great commercial metropolis, where the event 
took place ; nor does anything appear to have been 
wanting; to the magnificence of the scene. The 
naval parade in the harbor ; the march of sixty 
thousand soldiers through the streets, — soldiers 
only because they were citizens ; the array of 
veterans ; the splendid exhibitions of trade and 
commerce ; and, above all, the hundreds of 
thousands of happy, contented people, — united to 
constitute, not an empty pageant, but the tribute 
which the occasion demanded ; while the utter- 
ances of the distinguished orator, of the President 
and the two ex-Presidents of the United States, 
were replete with patriotic fervor, and appealed to 
no sentiments but those which are the common 
property of all true American hearts. Not less 
interesting was it that, in response to the pro- 
clamation of the President, and in memory of the 
fact that a hundred years before, prayer had been 
offered in all the churches of New York for the 
success of the new government, so many of our 
churches and religious societies throughout the 
entire country gathered together in thankfulness 
for the past, in hope for the future, in earnest 
prayer that as God had been to our fathers so 
might he be to us. It was a day. whatever our 
creed or party, whatever our fortune or station, 
when all desired to meet, united only by the tie of 



264 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

American citizenship. It is not my purpose to 
call attention to the difference between that day of 
prayerful anxiety when the first President was 
inaugurated, and the splendid ceremonial which 
celebrated its Centennial Anniversary, or to attempt 
to point out in detail the vast growth of the United 
States within the past century, its widely extended 
boundaries, or the great increase in wealth, not 
merely in the hands of a few, but in its wider 
diffusion through all ranks. It may be said that 
with a fertile continent at our disposal, even had 
we remained colonies, it would not have been far 
otherwise. If to some extent this must be recog- 
nized as true, it is also true that much is due to 
the Constitution under which we have lived. The 
lesson of America to the world is the capacity of* 
the people for self-government ; and she has herself 
reaped the advantage of the lesson she has taught. 
Nor do I doubt that if those who framed this 
wondrous scheme were permitted to look upon 
their work, they would feel that, in spite of all 
deductions, it has been carried forward in the 
spirit in which they commenced it. It is said 
that one of Napoleon's marshals, who always re- 
tained ardently his republican faith, as he stood 
most unwillingly at the coronation of the emperor, 
was asked, " Is there anything wanting to the 
splendor of this scene?" He answered gloomily, 
" Nothing but the presence of the half-million men 
who have died on the battle-field that it should be 
impossible." But it seems to me, that if, upon such 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 265 

a scene as that which commemorated the Inaujm- 
ration of Washington, those who have served us 
wisely and bravely through the past one hundred 
years, and are gone before us, had been permitted 
to look, — the wise men who have made for us just 
and equal laws ; the saintly men who, not by per- 
suasion only, but by the higher example of their 
noble lives, have pointed us up the highest paths of 
charity and religion ; the brave from our hundred 
battle-fields, from the snows of Valley Forge or 
from Saratoga and Yorktown, and those who came 
from Gettysburg and Appomattox, — that invisible 
host with one voice would have said, " Whatever 
we gave, in the way of thought or teaching, ex- 
ample or even life, we gave willingly, that the 
American people might be thus free, great, and 
happy." On such an occasion, as we look forward 
as well as back, our glance is no doubt colored with 
fear or with hope, to some extent, by our own 
peculiarity of temperament. Each age lias its 
trials ; the coming one will not be free from them. 
In all that we can recall of the past, in all that we 
see around us in the present, I can see no ground 
for that distrust of the future in which gentlemen 
sometimes indulge. The past has always about it 
a glamour that attracts the fancy, a haze that 
obscures its harsher and more distasteful features. 
There were never better or more hopeful times than 
those in which we live ; nor do I allude now to 
material wealth, but to those higher qualities which 
ennoble and dignify life. A republic must depend, 



2G6 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

finally, upon the character of the mass of its people, 
and upon their fitness to bear the burdens of that 
citizenship which is cast upon them. Wise and 
great as Washington was, he would have had no 
success in his trying task if the intellect and heart 
of America had not responded cordially to his. 
It is the character which the great body of our. 
people have exhibited, the responsibilities they 
have felt, the patriotism they have displayed, that 
have brought the nation to the proud position in 
which it stands to-day. If the statelier manners 
of a former generation are gone, I am far from 
thinking that ours have degenerated into either 
rudeness or vulgarity. In all the various grades of 
the social scale, in all the walks of life, no people 
ever showed more regard and consideration each 
for the other than do the American people now. 
And as none was ever more regardful of others, so 
none was itself ever more dignified and calmly 
self-respectful. 

If wealth has been showered upon us in large 
measure, never was wealth more generously used 
in the sacred causes of education, charity, and re- 
ligion. Our temples of religious worship, our 
universities and schools, our hospitals, attest the 
lavish hands with which it is poured out through 
the wide channels of public and private munifi- 
cence. How instant was the response when the 
news of the sad disaster in Pennsylvania was 
spread abroad ! The losses of the great capital- 
ists and manufacturers could not be repaired ex- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 207 

cept in time, through their own enterprise and in- 
dustry ; but every village recognized that a suffer- 
ing people was its kindred, and was ready with 
its contribution, that they should instantly have 
food, clothing, and shelter. 

Nor, as in retrospect we recall the terrible 
struggle through which, more than twenty-five 
years ago, we were called upon to pass, shall we 
feel that patriotism has been or will be wanting. 
The men who then seized their muskets grow old 
and gray, and move somewhat heavily now ; but 
their successors come with the swinging stride of 
youth, with equal courage, and if the sacrifice shall 
be demanded of them, we cannot doubt, with equal 
self-devotion. The bronze of the old heroic ages 
can be recast again and again, and lose neither its 
strength nor its fibre. As our great Civil War drew 
on. there were not wanting those who said, " It is 
useless to try to preserve a Union between States 
so discordant ; " or who, deeply sensible of the 
evils of slavery, still said, " Let the wayward sis- 
ters go in peace ! " Not such was the answer of 
the patriotic heart of the country. As the start- 
ling news was spread abroad that our flag had 
been fired upon, our sovereignty denied, came 
back the stern response : " The United States is 
a nation competent everywhere to assert its right- 
ful authority." How grand was that uprising, 
how magnificent were the results achieved, I do 
not need to remind you. The brave dead lie on 
many a field made sacred by their valor; but 



268 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

heavy as was the price, who shall say that what 
they accomplished was not worth it ? Who shall 
say that if they might be restored to us again, 
but with them must be restored the discordant 
Union with its system of slavery, we could wish 
them back ? Nay, who believes that they would 
themselves accept life again at such a price ? The 
fathers of the Constitution knew the flaw in their 
work, but it was a difficulty that they could not 
extricate from the problem before them ; they 
trusted it would pass away before the advancing 
light of freedom and knowledge. It was not thus 
to be. It was to vanish only in the storm -and the 
tempest ; but now that it is gone, earth and sky 
are sweeter and fairer than before. 

It is the immediate object of our Society to 
honor the patriots of the Revolution, but it is es- 
pecially their example which we strive to incul- 
cate. With the men of our war that memory was 
present always as an inspiration and a guide, — a 
pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night ; and 
by the law of natural association, the fame of the 
patriots of the Revolution gathers to itself always 
that of those who faithfully, wisely, or bravely 
serve their country. Standing on the verge of 
the second century of our national life, the future 
waves towards us its beckoning hand. The call 
must be answered, and the nation goes forward to 
meet it. Let it advance, not in the sordid spirit 
of those who seek only material gain, but in the 
firm belief that an exalted love of country, and 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 269 

an earnest wish for the elevation of its people, 
will guide it safely through all the rocks and over 
all the shoals that ma}' beset its onward way. 

Before I leave this theme, it may not be im- 
proper to remind you that within the past year 
has died almost the only great English statesman 
who steadfastly and unflinchingly upheld our 
cause during; the late Civil War. It is said that 
" the troubles of one nation are the opportunities 
of another," as then the latter may urge her 
claims and pursue her demands to advantage. 
No such worldly maxim of statecraft ever entered 
his loyal heart. With an eloquence that had made 
for him one of the highest places among orators 
who speak in the English tongue, his voice was 
heard on our behalf alike on the platform and 
in the House of Commons. Fronting the great 
commercial and industrial interests which would 
willingly have seen so formidable a rival as the 
United States crushed, and with whom his own 
fortunes were identified, he always insisted that 
the cause of the Union was the cause of law 
and order as against disorder and anarchy, of 
right and justice as against wrong and injustice, 
of liberty against slavery. The American who 
visits the great manufacturing city which was the 
home of this great and good man, may well pause 
for a moment in grateful memory at the humble 
Friends' burial-ground, where John Bright, to use 
his simple phrase, rests " among his own people." 
It is an interesting fact also, not unworthy 



270 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

of passing notice, that the same week that wit- 
nessed on this continent the close of the Ameri- 
can Revolution by the inauguration of Wash- • 
ington on April 30, saw upon the other side of 
the ocean the commencement of that great move- 
ment in political affairs, the French Revolution, by 
the assembling of the States-General on the 5th of 
May, 1789. The principles then avowed are not 
to be confounded with those which controlled four 
years later. The right of the governed to partici- 
pate in the government so far as to determine for 
what and the amount for which they shall be 
taxed, the right of all to be taxed alike and to 
stand equal before the law, the concurrence of the 
nation and the ruler in making the laws, the re- 
sponsibility of those who execute them, are princi- 
ples not contested by any constitution?J monarchy 
in Europe. When we recollect that at that time 
the subjects of some of the European princes were 
sold as sheep to fight in wars in which they 
had no interest, that a formidable part of the 
British Army during the last years of the War 
of the Revolution consisted of those who would 
themselves most willingly have been harmless 
German peasants, and whom we knew under the 
general name of Hessians, it must be conceded 
that something like a revolution was sorely 
needed in Europe. The excesses, deplorable as 
they were, into which at a later period the French 
Revolution fell, when confronted with the armies 
of all the monarchical powers of Europe, in its as- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 271 

sertion of the right of the French people to govern 
themselves, must not blind us to the fact that it 
marked a great step in the progress of self-govern- 
ment. This great event France is now celebrat- 
ing by her magnificent Exposition, for which in 
aid of our interests the Congress of the United 
States has made a most liberal appropriation. 
She has wisely made it the occasion for a celebra- 
tion of peace, with no disposition to awaken the 
memory of the wars which desolated Europe. It 
was perhaps not to be expected that the represen- 
tatives of the monarchical governments, even of 
those which have themselves conceded all that was 
demanded by the States-General of 1789, would be 
represented at its opening ceremonial ; but I have 
observed that two hundred and sixty-three mem- 
bers of Parliament, with the illustrious Mr. Glad- 
stone at their head, have protested against the 
absence of the British minister on that occasion. 
The republics of the world were there, our own 
at the head ; and I cannot but consider it a for- 
tunate circumstance that the banquet given by 
them to the President and the French Govern- 
ment was presided over by Mr. McLane. the re- 
tiring American minister, and attended by Mr. 
Whitelaw Reid, the incoming minister (whose 
credentials had not then been formally presented), 
for I feel that the good people of both our great 
parties unite in the wish that France, our earliest 
friend and our always faithful ally, may enjoy all 
the advantages of a permanent, well-settled, orderly, 



272 THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 

free government. For the third time in her his- 
tory of the century she is a republic. That her 
difficulties are many, is readily seen. Compelled 
to maintain a great army, subjected to the jeal- 
ousy of the governments about her, beset by the 
supporters of the regal and imperial families, there 
is no easy task before those who strive to guide 
her destinies ; but I warmly wish that she ma/ 
rise above them all. 

Never, since the Napoleonic wars, was there a 
time when Europe was so oppressed with vast 
armies and armaments, as to-day. It is our 
fortune to try the problem of republican govern- 
ment under happier conditions, and such as have 
never before existed. No armies oppress our 
people with their vast expenditure, no factions 
threaten our form of government ; there is use- 
ful and honorable employment for all. It is for 
us as faithful citizens to show that we are wor- 
thy of the political blessings that have so gen- 
erously been bestowed upon us. 



ORATION ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNI- 
VERSARY OF THE LOYAL LEGION. 

DELIVERED AT PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 15, 1890. 



Companions of the Army and the Navy, — 
I congratulate you that we are assembled in such 
full numbers to celebrate the Twenty-fifth Anni- 
versary of the formation of this Order. Sur- 
vivors of many a hard-fought battle and many 
a desperate day, you come alike from the long 
marches and fierce conflicts which gave us pos- 
session of the South and West ; from the banks 
of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi ; 
from the narrower, yet not less terrible field 
where the Army of the Potomac fought out 
finally to the bitter end its bloody and pro- 
tracted duel with the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia ; and from every scene by land or sea made 
red by heroic strife. The mountain ranges, the 
deep bayous, the rich and broad plains, the mighty 
rivers of flie fairest portion of a continent, attest 
your constanc}* and valor. Time as well as war 
has been generous to you in this. — that for a 
quarter of a century it has permitted you to enjoy 
the just regard of a nation and the full fruition 

18 



274 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

of your deeds. For this bounteous gift let us 
render the homage of grateful hearts. 

We are fortunate in the place where we as- 
semble. The city of Philadelphia w T as the capital 
of our Revolutionary era. Here were proclaimed 
the birth and independence of the United States. 
Here, too, was framed that Constitution which is 
the crowning glory of the Revolution. The peace 
with Great Britain, in 1783, had left us without 
a settled government, and the discords of jealous 
States had already appeared. The years that im- 
mediately followed were filled with profound dis- 
trust and anxious forebodings. The convention 
that met here in 1787 made of these States a 
people and a nation. Where should those who 
offered their lives to defend that Constitution 
meet more happily or more proudly than in the 
city in which it received its birth ? 

Nor ought we to forget that in the hour of the 
Rebellion this city lost none of its ancient repu- 
tation for patriotism. Its gallant sons were among 
our earliest and bravest soldiers ; its generous con- 
tributions, its sanitary commissions, its Christian 
commissioners, its cordial supplies of provisions to 
the soldiers going to or returning from the front, 
its unfailing care of the sick and wounded, are 
embalmed in sacred remembrance. We whose 
residence is to the north and east had from our 
position the largest share of this lavish hospitality. 
One who has been through here, as I have been, 
with a hungry regiment, and seen every man 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 275 

bountifully fed, or has conic, as I have come, a 

wounded soldier, and known the kind care of its 
citizens and the skill of its justly renowned sur- 
geons, may certainly speak with something like 
personal feeling. 

The Military Order of the Loyal Legion had its 
inception on that saddest day, at the conclusion of 
the Civil War, when humanity throughout the 
world was shocked by the death of Abraham Lin- 
coln. In honor of that illustrious memory, and 
of the great cause for which we had fought ; in 
recognition of the affectionate friendships which 
had been inspired among the officers of the army 
then about to disband ; in historic recollection of 
the Society of the Cincinnati, which had embraced 
the officers of the Revolutionary Army, — it was 
determined to form this Order ; and at a meeting 
of a few officers in this city the initial steps were 
that day taken for its organization. It was the 
first of the military societies which followed, or 
rather accompanied, the close of the war. I do 
not intend to pursue the details of its history, 
except to say that when, some time later, the 
society of the Grand Army of the Republic was 
formed, intended to comprehend all of whatever 
rank who had honorably served, no antagonism 
was created to this, nor was any reason seen why, 
in its more limited sphere, this might not also be 
properly maintained. To the Grand Army of the 
Republic we have always fully and cordially ac- 
corded as its rightful place the position of the 



276 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

great representative society which includes and 
gathers into itself every association of that whole 
American army which subdued the Rebellion. 
That society has extended wide its generous and 
open-handed charity ; it has cherished the noblest 
patriotism ; and if there are those of this associa- 
tion who are not also members of that, I urge 
them respectfully to join its ranks, and to give to it 
their cordial support in its purest and highest aims. 
Of the officers who listen to me, many, almost a 
majority, have carried the musket and the knap- 
sack in the ranks, and are justly proud that they 
have won their way by their own ability and de- 
termination. To some the possession of high mili- 
tary qualities may have given command, yet in all 
armies rank and promotion are often the result of 
circumstance and opportunity, and thus accident 
contributes to success. It was especially so in our 
own. springing as it did from the ground at once 
in answer to the call of an imperilled country. 
Long and faithful service brought to many a man 
only the proud consolation of duty nobly clone, of 
sacrifice generously offered, and of that self-respect 
which one may well maintain even in the hum- 
blest home. As I would speak to-night of all our 
armies as but one, so would I speak of those who 
composed it as but a single body of men. Side by 
side, on many a field won by their valor, no use- 
less coffins around their breasts, but wrapped in 
the blanket which is the soldier's martial shroud, 
officers and men await together the coming of the 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 277 

eternal day. Side by side those more fortunate 
who have returned, have returned with equal 
claims to the regard and love of those for whom 
they fought. When one has done his whole dui \ . 
so far as his title to respect is concerned, it can 
and ought to make no difference whether he did it 
with the stars of the general or the eagles of the 
colonel on his shoulder, or in the simple jacket of 
the private. The fame of every general, even in 
the highest rank, must depend largely on the men 
whom he leads. However far-reaching and saga- 
cious his plans may be, it is still by strong hands 
and stout hearts that they must be carried out 
and results achieved. 

When we consider how little adapted the edu- 
cation of the American citizen is to that system of 
discipline which is intended to make of the soldier 
a machine, in order that the physical strength and 
power of thousands may be wielded by the will of 
one alone ; when we remember how prone we all 
of us are to criticise the acts of others or their 
orders and directions, — we realize how difficult it 
must have been to yield that unquestioning obedi- 
ence which is the necessary rule of the military 
service. Yet how generously our men gave their 
confidence, how nobly they strove, sometimes in dis- 
aster, often under the most trying circumstances, 
to execute the orders they received ! To one who 
held any command the wish must often have come 
that he could have led them better and done fuller 
justice to their merits. 



278 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

Companions, we meet not merely for a few 
hours of social enjoyment, nor alone to renew our 
friendships formed, although many of them were 
formed when the death-shots were falling thick and 
fast ; we meet also to reassert our devotion to the 
great cause of the Constitution and the Union ; we 
meet to honor the memories of those who bravely 
died in that righteous cause, or who have passed 
from our side in the years that have followed, and 
to dedicate ourselves anew to our country and to 
the great principles of liberty and justice. 

In the lonsf annals of wars with which the earth 

o 

has been filled, it would be difficult to find any 
less justifiable than the War of the Rebellion. 
The flimsy dogma of the right of a State to secede 
from the Union at its own will and pleasure, and 
assert its sovereignty against that of the govern- 
ment of which it formed a component part, was a 
pretence only by which the leaders of the slave 
States sought to disguise their project of erecting 
an empire whose corner-stone was to be (to use 
Mr. Vice-President Stephens's own words) the 
system of slavery. 

Had any one in Philadelphia in 1787 uttered 
the gloomy foreboding that every State might with- 
draw from the Union at its own pleasure, and that 
the Constitution had thus provided for its own dis- 
solution, his fears would have been scouted and 
laughed to scorn. He would have been told that 
this Union is not one of States, but of the people 
of all the States, — so it is expressly declared ; as 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 279 

such alone can it be accepted. It was a necessity 
of the task that the framers of the Constitu- 
tion had before them, that the government they 
had met to form should include two classes of 
States. Nor did the difficulty appear to them so 
formidable as it afterwards proved. Fresh from 
their own struggle for liberty, they could not 
but be conscious that slavery was utterly incon- 
sistent with the principles upon which a free 
government must rest ; they fully believed that 
it would die out and drift silently away. It 
was not thus to pass away, but in the wildest of 
storms and tempests that ever raged on sea or 
land ; but now that it is gone, earth and sky are 
fairer than before. 

Without dwelling on the various phases of the 
protracted controversy to which this system gave 
rise under the influence of men who were willing 
to sacrifice the Union to its perpetuity, the failure 
to make of Kansas a slave State, and the election 
of Mr. Lincoln, had settled that there was to be no 
more slave territory added to the Union. Madly 
resolved to rule or ruin, those who controlled the 
public opinion of the South determined to dissolve 
the Union. No real grievance existed, but im- 
aginary ones could be trumped up. No right of the 
Southern States was invaded, or even threatened. 
The President-elect had solemnly pledged himself 
to protect them in every right ; nor could he, if 
he would, have done otherwise, as, while they 
remained, his administration would have had an 



280 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

adverse majority in both Houses of Congress, which 
they could substantially control. But his election 
was made at once the occasion of secession by the 
cotton States, which stood, however, alone during 
the anxious winter of 1860-61. The Union feel- 
ing was still strong in the States that lay north 
of them, and they were as yet reluctant to take 
the decisive step. Something must be done to 
involve them, — something to "fire the Southern 
heart," as the phrase of the day was, and to in- 
duce them to make common cause ; and so the 
tempest of shot and shell was let loose upon 
Fort Sumter. The experiment had the success 
which was anticipated, and a success which was 
not anticipated ; for if the Southern heart was 
fired, so was the Northern also. How majestic 
was that uprising, how former political differences 
were forgotten, how strongly all felt that the great 
tie of American citizenship was above all party, 
I do not need to remind you. There were not 
wanting those who, aghast at the gulf of fire that 
seemed opening before us, said, " Let the way- 
ward sisters go in peace ; " there were not wanting 
others who, deeply sensible of the evils of slavery, 
were ready to grasp at the opportunity of separa- 
ting from the States which tolerated it. The loyal 
head of the country was wiser, the loyal heart of 
the country truer than this. As the startling news 
flew from city to city and village to village, east 
and west, that our flag had been insulted and tram- 
pled upon, and the integrity of our government 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGIOX. 281 

assailed, the stern tones of the answer of the 
people always came back, " The United States is 
a nation competent to assert its own sovereignty, 
and to subdue and punish traitors." To them the 
Union was not a rope of sand to be blown about 
by every breeze, or washed away by a summer sea, 
but a chain whose golden links were strong as 
adamant. Forged in the fire of that great strife 
which had finally separated us from the most 
powerful nation on the earth, it was clear that 
if the Union were once destroyed, all hope of 
erecting any stable government upon its ruins 
must for the time be abandoned. The conflicts 
of discordant States were before us, grinding 
against each other their bloody edges in fierce 
contentions, which, like the wars of the Saxon 
Heptarchy, would be worth no more to the ad- 
vancement of the world than the wars of the 
kites and crows. Nor if two distinct confed- 
eracies could have been framed, was permanent 
peace between them possible. Two great sys- 
tems of civilization were front to front and face 
to face. The conflict in arms, to which we had 
been summoned by the cannon which bombarded 
Fort Sumter, was indeed irrepressible. It was a 
necessity of empire that one or the other should 
conquer. Rich and broad as the continent is, 
with its great gateways on the Atlantic and the 
Pacific seas, it was not broad enough for both. 

It was a groat elemental struggle, where the 
differences had their origin in the foundations of 



282 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

society itself. There are times in the history of 
nations when the conduct of its wars may be 
left to its regular forces ; yet no such time had 
come to us. It was a war of the people, waged 
unhappily against a portion of the same people, 
yet not the less in obedience to the plainest princi- 
ples of justice and right. Nor let it ever be for- 
gotten that although the leaders of the Rebellion 
were successful in drawing into it most of the 
States of the South, there were true men every- 
where who never yielded and never faltered 
in their allegiance. If I could properly give a 
warmer welcome to any above others, it should 
be to the gallant soldiers of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, of Maryland, West Virginia, Missouri, and 
other States of the South, who came to rejoice 
our hearts and strengthen our hands. 

It was in the feeling of the mOst exalted pa- 
triotism that the national army was formed, and 
the men who composed it embraced all that 
was purest and bravest in the young life of a 
nation. Counting all the cost, recognizing all 
the danger, the path of duty before them was 
plain, and they followed it. No doubt the blood 
of youth was high in their veins, and they looked 
forward not unwillingly to the stern joy of the 
conflict; but love of country was still the great 
moving principle which actuated them. It is 
not a penalty, it is a just responsibility, that a 
government founded by a people should look to 
them for its legitimate defence. Certainly, I 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 283 

would speak, neither to-night nor at any other 
time, any words of harshness or unkindness in- 
dividually of those with whom we were lately at 
war. There is no body of men more anxious to 
be at peace with all their countrymen than are 
the soldiers of the national army ; there are no 
utterances more cordial in favor of a generous 
oblivion and forgetfulness than are theirs ; but 
they cannot, and they ought not to forget that the 
cause for which those who opposed them stood 
was gravely wrong. It is the cause for which 
our brave have died that forever sets them apart 
among the myriads who people the silent cities 
of the dead. Let us be generous to those with 
whom we had to contend, but let us be just to 
our own cause. We willingly do honor to their 
courage and valor ; but those high equalities have 
sometimes gilded with a false light causes which 
cannot command the approval of the world, or 
bear the clear, white light of time. We know 
the allowances which must be made for erro- 
neous beliefs, for mistaken education, for old 
associations, for the example of others, even for 
temporary feeling and passion. Let us make 
them freely. Yet, when all are made, neither 
the living nor the dead of a great and holy 
cause can be confounded with those who fell in 
the wretched struggle to destroy a nation or 
erect a system of government false to the great 
principles of liberty. Their cause, as well as 
ours, is rapidly passing into history. Before 



284 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

that great tribunal we are ready to hold up our 
hands and plead and answer. Nor shall we fear 
that its verdict can be otherwise than that ours 
was the cause of order against disorder, of just 
and righteous government against rebellion, of 
liberty against slavery. If it be less than this, 
then was Mr. Jefferson Davis the patriot he has 
been somewhere lately eulogized, and we, and 
the brave who offered their lives with us, but 
successful traitors. 

It is not for us here to review, even in the most 
cursory way, the events of that tremendous strug- 
gle. Such would be the office of the historian, not 
of the casual speaker. The problem before us we 
underrated in the beginning, nor since have we 
taken the credit which is fairly due for overcoming 
its difficulties. To conduct a war over such an ex- 
tended territory with success, to seize and hold its 
strategic points in the midst of a hostile and war- 
like population, to maintain the lengthened lines 
of communication for armies operating far from 
their base, constituted an enterprise unparalleled 
in its demand for men and resources. That the 
contest must broaden into one for the liberty of all 
men, and that the plague spot which had troubled 
the peace of the Union must be cut out by the 
surgeon's knife, was obvious from the first. The 
year 1862 stands forever memorable as including 
one of those events whose occurrence marks the 
opening of a new era, and shows that the great 
bell of time has struck another hour. " I had 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 285 

made a solemn vow," says Mr. Lincoln himself, 
tk that it* General Lee was driven from Maryland 1 
would crown the result by a declaration of freedom 
to the slaves." That vow was faithfully kept, for 
on the Monday which followed the information 
that the battle of Antietam was won, such a dec- 
laration was issued, and it was followed on Jan- 
uary 1 by the more formal proclamation which 
declared all persons to be free within the insurgent 
States, stating the act to be demanded by military 
necessity, and invoking upon it " the considerate 
judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of 
Almighty God." Such an act was, from its very 
nature, irrevocable. On that day the shifting 
sands of concession and compromise passed from 
under the feet of the American people, and they 
planted themselves firmly on the great rocks of 
liberty and justice to all men, to be moved there- 
from, we will believe, no more forever. 

The succeeding year witnessed the splendid vic- 
tory of Gettysburg, which, accompanying the fall 
of Vicksburg, marks definitely the culminating 
point of the conflict by the joint triumph of the 
Eastern and Western armies, aided by our gallant 
navy. Although the waves were to come again 
and yet again, no wave w r as to come higher than 
that which was dashed back in clouds of broken, 
dissolving spray as it struck the iron wall of the 
infantry of the Army of the Potomac. The causes 
of the movement of the Confederate Army into 
Pennsylvania were never fully stated by General 



286 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

Lee. He intimates distinctly in his report that 
others existed than those of a purely military char- 
acter. Without doubt, among them was the hope 
to break something of the force of the impending 
fall of Vicksburg, which, grasped in the iron em- 
brace of Grant and the Army of the Tennessee, 
must soon surrender. A victory won on Northern 
soil would do this. It is the good fortune of the 
patriotic State in which we stand that it contains 
within its borders not only this memorable field, 
but that its fame is allied to the victory by the 
memory of three of its most illustrious command- 
ers. The calm and judicious Meade, whose wisdom 
brought about the encounter in which the enemy 
was obliged to attack, and in which the Army of 
the Potomac was able for once to stand on the de- 
fensive ; the splendid Hancock, the idol of the 
Potomac Army, whose fiery words and majestic 
presence infused into all around him something of 
the courage of his own daring heart, — are gone to- 
day. They lived long enough to be assured of the 
honor and love in which they were held by their 
countrymen ; but on the field and at the head of 
the First Corps died Reynolds, then, as always, 
unassuming, modest, brave, contributing nobly to 
that victory whose fruits he was never to enjoy. 
Yet where could man die better than in the de- 
fence of his native State, his life-blood mingling 
with the soil on which he first drew breath ? The 
4th of July, 1863, was the proudest day which up 
to that time the Union arms had ever known, for 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 287 

the cannon which ushered in a nation's natal day 
were mingled with those which told through the 
North the victory of Gettysburg, and were echoed 
and re-echoed from the West and South along 
with those which in thunder tones announced that 
Vicksburg had fallen, and that the Mississippi ran 
•• unvexed to the sea." 

The terrible year of 1864 was yet to come. The 
control of all the armies was to pass into the hands 
of General Grant alone, and to be directed by his 
single will. The region west of the Alleghanies was 
secure under the direction of Sherman ; and as he 
made his great march from Chattanooga to At- 
lanta, and from Atlanta to the sea, the conflicts of 
the Army of the Potomac with its formidable op- 
ponent were renewed again and again on the 
desperate fields of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, 
and Cold Harbor. In the spring of 1865 that 
great army moved to its last series of battles, and 
the surrender of Appomattox followed. The sword 
of Lee was laid in the conquering hand of Grant, 
and the War of the Rebellion was over. Hence- 
forward no shot was fired in anger, and the 
surrender of the other armies of the Confederacy 
followed. No executions, no harsh punishments 
were to mark its close ; yet under God the Union 
had received a new birth of freedom, and, purified 
by the fires through which it had passed, had risen 
grander and more august among the nations. 

Silently as snowflakes melt into the sea, the 
men who composed our armies passed into the 



288 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

general life of that community which they had 
saved, yet not as drones or idlers, but to carry with 
them into the occupations of peace the lessons of 
courage, fidelity, and patriotism which they had 
learned on the grim fields of war. Their bugles 
will wake no more the morning echoes as they 
salute with their reveille the coming day ; the de- 
scending night will hear no more the rolling tattoo 
of their drums ; their cannon long since have ut- 
tered their last note of defiance or of victory ; yet 
impartial history shall record that no army was 
ever assembled with higher aims and loftier pur- 
poses, none more ardent with the sacred flame of 
patriotism, none more calm and resolute in disaster, 
and none more generous and forgiving in victory. 
So long as the flag that it bore at the head of its 
marching columns shall wave above a free and 
united people, it shall be remembered with grati- 
tude that in its day and generation it did for this 
country deeds worthy of immortal honor, and that 
the army that preserved is worthy to stand side 
by side with the army that achieved the liberty of 
the Republic. 

The material evidences of the conflict pass rapidly 
away. The earthworks with which the land was 
covered sink to the level of the surrounding soil, 
and scarp and counterscarp meet in the ditch that 
once divided them. So let the evil feelings which 
the strife engendered fade away. The war is 
marked definitely only by the great amendments 
to the Constitution of the United States. That 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 289 

these embody more than the fair results of the 
contest; that they are intended to do more than 
to state in a definite and permanent form the 
principles of justice, freedom, equality before the 
law for all men, — cannot be seriously main- 
tained ; that they should be fully and generously 
obeyed, cannot be seriously contested. The vic- 
tory gained was for the South as well as the North. 
Already in agriculture, formerly almost her only 
source of revenue, her production has vastly in- 
creased ; while the opening of mines, the develop- 
ment of manufactures, the rise of great towns 
and cities where formerly existed but scattered 
hamlets, attest the inspiration she has caught from 
freedom. Year by year, as time rolls on, she is 
destined to feel the influences of that steady 
force which is impelling the country forward, nor 
will she lag behind in the march of peace and 
prosperity. 

Companions, while we have a right to rejoice in 
all that brave hearts and strong arms have Avon, 
no occasion that draws together those who survive 
of the armies of the Union can be one of unmixed 
joy. With proud memories come also those that 
are grave and sad. Nor if I recall those who are 
gone before us, would I do so to diminish by one 
jot or tittle the pleasure of our present gathering, 
but rather to ennoble and dignify it. I would re- 
member them as each one of us would wish to be 
recalled in the hour of decent mirth and of social 
enjoyment, when hand clasps hand in friendship 

19 



290 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGIOX. 

and mutual esteem. There are no words which 
can render a just tribute to those whose deeds are 
their true eulogy ; there, is no honor too high for 
those who gave their lives willingly rather than 
that a single star should be obscured on the mighty 
shield on which are emblazoned the arms of the 
Union. 

Nor do yon need to be reminded how many have 
passed away since the war, and how steadily the 
fierce artillery of time is doing its work. Close up 
the ranks as best we can, we are an army to which 
there come no recruits. Generous as is this gath- 
ering at our Twenty-fifth Anniversary, how few 
can expect to join in the Fiftieth ! Without doubt 
there will be some who will with more feeble 
voices seek to raise the ringing cheer with which 
we once answered the Rebel yell, even if soon they 
too must yield to the common lot of man. The 
chiefs of this organization, the predecessors of its 
present Commander (who I trust may long be 
spared), — General Cadwalader, that model of a 
gentleman and soldier, the splendid Hancock, the 
fiery and impetuous Sheridan, — all are gone. Yet 
let me not mention names, — lest by mentioning 
some I might seem to omit others equally worthy, 
— save the great name of Grant alone. He was the 
Commander of all the armies, to his trumpet-call 
each one of us has answered, and to him it was 
given to end our great strife with a victory which 
enabled him to exclaim, " Let us have peace." 

How many are missing to-day at the roll-call 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 291 

you know but too well. Even if our voices may 
falter and our utterances choke as the name of some 
honored chieftain who has led us rises to our lips, 
or of some dear friend, it may be, who has shared 
our mess and our blanket, we recall them in honor. 
and not in sorrow. So would we remember all, — 
not alone the great chiefs who urged forward the 
onset of mighty battalions, but the humble, faith- 
ful soldier who did his duty manfully. Wherever 
those gallant spirits have passed to their long re- 
pose, — whether they sleep in the bayous of the 
Mississippi, or by the waters of the Potomac, the 
Cumberland, or the Tennessee, in the tangled wild- 
wood, or in the shadow of their own homes with 
the monumental marble high above their breasts, — 
all in memory are welcome here. " The whole 
earth," says Pericles, " is the sepulchre of illus- 
trious men ; " and our mountains seem to lift their 
heads more loftily for the brave 'who lie upon their 
crests, and our rivers to move to the sea with 
a prouder sweep for those whose life-blood has 
mingled with their streams : — 

"They fell devoted hut undying; 
The very gale their names seems sighing ; 
The waters murmur of their name 
The woods are peopled with their fame; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river. 
Roll mingling with their fame forever." 

Nor, Companions, in this hour do we fail to re- 
member him. not a soldier indeed, but to whose 
military capacity, developed by years of anxious 
study, tardy justice is just beginning to lie don;'. 



292 ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

who was. by the Constitution, the Commander of 
the army and navy, the then President of the 
United States, — him upon whom the faith of all 
citizens and soldiers, old and }*oung, rich and poor, 
alike, had rested secure during those terrible years, 
and whose own heart was large enough to embrace 
in love and charity all that people over whom 
Providence had placed him, to be their ruler and 
guide in the supreme hour of their destiny. 
Twenty-five } 7 ears ago to-day he passed from the 
ranks of living men, yet each year has added to 
that pure and splendid fame. Every record, every 
newly discovered act or letter which loving industry 
brings to light, but serves to reveal how kind and 
good, how wise and great he was. 

On the day after its capture, when he visited 
Richmond, it was my own good fortune to ride 
side by side with him in the headquarters' army- 
wagon which conveyed him through the streets of 
that city so long the citadel of the Confederacy. 
He seemed weary and tired, graver than I had 
ever seen him, less rejoicing in the triumph that 
had been won than anxious about the new prob- 
lems looming up before him. It may be that I 
interpret the recollections of that hour in the bale- 
ful light of the dreadful tragedy that so soon fol- 
lowed ; yet, as I recall it, he seemed to me like 
one who felt that his life's work was done, and 
who would willingly rest from his labors, that his 
works might follow him. The wavs of Provi- 
dence are not always ours; it may be that it was 
decreed that this great life should end in the very 



ORATION BEFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 293 

hour of victory by the assassin's hand, because it 
was seen by a wider vision than we possess that to 
that life of self-sacrifice and patriotic devotion the 
noblest close was that which has invested him for- 
ever with the martyr's crown. It is not always 
to those who achieve success that its temporal 
enjoyment is granted; the reward of high heroic 
souls is in their own sense of duty performed, of 
trial and sacrifice resolutely endured, in the con- 
sciousness that others will reap all for which they 
have bravely striven. 

In the older Scriptures the statety figure of the 
great Hebrew law-giver and warrior stands on the 
lonely hill in the land of Moab to gaze out over 
the Promised Land, which it is decreed he shall 
never enter. Fair before him stretch the fertile 
fields, yet no crops from them shall ever fill his 
garners. The sparkling waters dance in the sun- 
light, yet no draught from them shall ever refresh 
his weary lips. He has crossed at the head of the 
children of Israel the stormy w T aters of the Red 
Sea ; he has led them through the forty years of 
wandering in the wilderness. For them the hour 
of enjoyment has come. His work is done ; for 
him it remains but to rest in his lonely grave. 
So to this our Moses, who had led us through 
the Red Sea of Rebellion, is vouchsafed but a 
glimpse of the Promised Land, as he passes from 
mortal sight forever. 

'•Beautiful upon the mountains," says the 
prophet Isaiah. " are the feet of him that bring- 



294 ORATION BPJFORE THE LOYAL LEGION. 

eth good tidings." Yet as the messengers approach 
we see that their countenances are grave, that their 
garments are worn, that their feet are torn by the 
flinty way; but beautiful are they still for the 
glad tidings which they bear. And as in imagina- 
tion there rises again before us the tall figure of 
Abraham Lincoln, not graceful according to the 
rules of classic art, yet not without its own sim- 
ple majesty ; as we behold again that rugged coun- 
tenance, deep graven with the lines of princely 
care, — we see it illumined with a nobler light 
than the cunning hand of the Greek could give to 
the massive brow of the Olympian Jupiter ; beau- 
tiful in the radiance of truth and justice, while the 
scroll that he holds in his strong right hand bears 
the glad tidings of liberty to all men. 

Companions, my brief task is ended. In the 
conflict and in the years which have followed the 
war, half of what were once our numbers, it is 
probable, have passed the barrier which separates 
the seen from the unseen world. They are the 
advance of that army of which we are the rear- 
guard. Somewhere they have halted for us, some- 
where they are waiting for us. Steadily we are 
closing up to them. Let us sling on our knapsacks 
as of old ; let us cheerily go forward in the full 
faith that by fidelity to diuyy, by loyalty to liberty, 
b^ devotion to the country which is the mother 
of us all, we are one army still. 



THE END. 



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